Cracked Crab - What is your receipe

[big nd fan]

Just wondering how you fish your crab for reds. I break mine in half but crabs eat the meat out.

Any advice will be helpful.

[Gerald]

For a med size or larger.....I will cut them into 4 pices. A small live crab, I bread of the claws and put it on the hook alive.

If the Red's are there, you don't have to wait very long and crabs are not a problem.

[swamp snorkler]

Pull off the pincers, take a pair of pliers and break the spines off the side, hook it through the back fin where the leg meets the body, this doesn't kill the crab and allows it to move around. Reds will pick it up and run with it, when they stop set the hook. They need time to swallow the bait.

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

Pull off the pincers, take a pair of pliers and break the spines off the side, hook it through the back fin where the leg meets the body, this doesn't kill the crab and allows it to move around. Reds will pick it up and run with it, when they stop set the hook. They need time to swallow the bait.

Lots of ways to do it. Under turbid conditions (chocolate milk), we remove the claws, take the top shell off, break in half, and hook up on a 6/0 or 7/0 hook. I think this is the easiest for red drum to find when they are scent oriented in their feeding.

If crabs/hardheads are eating all the meat out within 10 minutes, we'll leave the top shell on and cut the market size crab in half with a knife. Still lots of scent, but it takes longer for the crabs/hardheads to remove all the meat.

In the worst case of bait stealers removing all the meat, we switch to whole crab claws (market size) or whole crabs (smaller than market size). But this also represents a shift that will be more effective in clearer water where the feeding is less exclusively scent based. Red drum can find claws and whole crabs via scent, but the dispersion radius is smaller than with cracked crab.

We don't believe in setting the hook on redfish. When fish the bait with the drag set very loosely. When a bull redfish starts to pull drag, we count to seven before lifting the rod from the holder and tightening the drag for the fight. Our hook up rates are very very high.

[Slidellkid]

Swamp Snorkler,

Just curious, why do you break the spines off the side?

[swamp snorkler]

Makes it easier for the fish to eat, takes away one of their defence mechanisms.

[jkcckc2002]

Good info guys.

[fishhawk]

I tear off all legs and claws and cut horns off, then run the hook in through back leg socket and out another socket.

[big nd fan]

Thanks for the info. I have a better idea of what to do to hook em up.