Crabbing Southern Moreton Bay

Have been lucky enough to get on the water last weekend and during the start of the week. Saturday put some pots in down the bottom of the bay for muddies and ended up with 7 nice bucks over a 2.5hr soak.
Wondering how much of the catch was luck I planned to put pots out monday. Set pots in 2 different locations to target muddies and sandies. Pots in Monday and pulled Tuesday for 7 more muddies and managed 18 sandies. Rebaited and set pots, pulled the pots out wednesday for 11 muddies and 17 sandies.
I did find the sandies were in larger numbers up in the shallower water and about 95% were full. I was suprised at the muddies, about 50% of the legal bucks were empty. For the amount of crabs I got, a lot of empties went back, so hopefully there will be some big full crabs for later on.
Biggest crab went about 18.5 across the shell, were a few around that size. All that remains is 2 mudcrabs and 1 sand crab! Very tasty stuff.
I have also become very popular among the family.....

very good, I guess you were using 8 pots
good to be able to help family and friends out that don't get the opportunity to catch their own

Well done mate. A good mate and I went out in the southern bay at the end of January and found the same thing that most of our crabs were empty even though they were legal.

Jackson4300

Not sure which moon phase is the growing out stage, at one cycle they moult and grow, by the next cycle they should be full as. Maybe you got the crabs (Muddies) at the wrong cycle.

I too place the empties back in the water to grow and develop more, no use having an empty crab.

Still good effort, as Robsue stated good to get a feed for your family members who cant get out to get their own hey!

Cheers, Bondy

Yes I did have 8 pots during the week and a different helper each time. After I got the muddies on Saturday by myself it didn't seem to hard to find a helper to come out with me!
Yea I probably won't target any muddies for awhile, not while the sandies are in good numbers and full.

Went out this morning to wello, I certainly wasn't the only one! Lots of boats and lots of pots but I still managed 17 good sandies over 4 hours by myself.

Outgoing tide - not the best, 4 pots soaked ( by myself) on the way to Peel for a fish. Pull the boat out, washed and boiling up 9 of the biggest sandies ever by 10am. Bait was bream, tarwine, mono and a snapper frame from the weekend B4 so the bait didn't cost me anything.

Doesn't get much better, just the right amount for a feed

Scalem

I realize that this is an old post Jackson but wondering at what depth you dropped your pots.
Thanks ... wassa.

Hi Wassa, very old post!
The muddies I got from this post were from the deep side of a drop off at Redland Bay. From memory I think the depth ranged from 4-5.5m.
Sandies, I went out Friday last week and soaked some pots for a couple hours and got 3 legal sandies. I normally vary the pots for sandies from 1.5m to 5m at wellington point on the first drop. After I check them, I then move the pots to the depth that was most succesful.