bait

can aneyone tell me what is the best time to collect peeler crabs of the east coast

About now.

There are two major moults of shore crabs. The first happens in March/April (depending on where you are), and these are exclusively the male crabs. The second is happening now, the female crabs. You will find other peaks during the summer, around every spring tide, and there is afurther peak in September. Please remember to put the rocks back though..... Before anyone tells me I'm wrong, there are regional variations, and in Devon/Cornwall some can be found over the winter. also here in North Wales. We run over 200 tyres on Anglesey (for research purposes), and even in winter a few peelers can be found. Also, if anyone wants to take issue, forget it! I have worked on on the moulting endocrinology of these crabs for over 20 years, so you cant' tell me anything, I don't know, but I can tell you lots you lot dont' know! Simon.

hi simon
thanks for this info. i live in west yorkshire. i have bought some crabs for seafishing and thay have been so small it wos a rip off. is there aney legal size to peelers as there is with eating crabs if not do u or aney body think there should be.you have been in this game for 20 years what do you think
thanks simon
keith
ps. keep going for another 20 plus

Has any body tried Monster Crab Boilies for sea fishing and had any success?

Hi Keith, thanks for the message. Sorry you got ripped off- go back to the shop and complain- there is at present no limit to the size of shore crabs that can be collected (like edible crabs, and I'm sure some of you will be surprised to hear, velvet swimming crabs- there are size limits, so watch out), although there should be size limits on shore crabs, or at least a ban on collecting females and matin pairs. Problem is that they are generally much smaller on your side of the coast than on the West coast..... A while ago I was involved in advising limits to crab collecting in Devon estuaries- I suggested there should be limits. We will see what happens, although most of the damage is caused by anglers not replacing stones, not by commercial collectors....Related to this, and on a Welsh note, I have over 150 tyres on a shore on Anglesey, for one of my research projects, to do with moulting. In spite of a clear laminated sheet on each one, explaining that the these are part of a large research project, the locals are raiding these every morning... If any of you "raiders" read this, please be considerate- just take a few from a couple of tyres, I'm happy with this... just don't go through them all- I have a ?250K research grant riding on this! Cheers, Simon

250k for research on crabs..?

Dear Chris,Why not, they are wonderful things! We work on neuroendocrine (hormones produced by the nervous system) mechanisms involved in moulting and reproduction. Might seem esoteric, but we all have hormones! Seriously, we understand little about these things, and many of you would be surprised to know the value of shrimp and crab farming worlwide- billions of dollars! The main problem is that most species of commercially exploited shrimp, ie what you might buy as Tiger Prawns in the supermarket, do not breed in captivity,they just sulk and get stressed, hence impregnated, mature females have to be captured from the wild, which involves a lot of destructive trawling, and of course, unless the life cycle can be "closed" in captivity, these wild caught prawns will introduce viral diseases to aquaculture. (Once a viral disease is established, most farmers just move on, and since much of the farming is done in mangrove regions, new farms just bulldoze out the mangroves and start again- not very environmentally friendly.....) Each one of these wild caught "mother prawns" can spawn many millions of fertilised eggs, so are quite highly prized- over 1000 dollars per prawn, so you can imagine the damage that can be caused in the areas they exist, particularly when you consider the average wage of most of South East Asia- where many species of prawn live. So, by studying the hormones involved in these processes (moulting and reproduction), in a much more prosaic but robust model animal such as a crab, we hope to identify the hormonally critical steps which result in "blocks" in ovarian development in crustaceans, and specifically, prawns. The hormones involved in both cab and prawn moulting and reproduction are essentially related- indeed they are surprisingly similar, but the problem is that prawns are very delicate, expensive, and are not (for a number of reasons) amenable to the sort of research we need to do- hence crabs! On another note, many of the hormones we work on have counterparts in insects, thus we have a potentially "environmentally friendly" handle on pest control by species-specific hormone disruption, rather than using pesticides here as well. Finally, we all have counterparts of crab hormones in our brains- what do they do?- We don't know. (No jokes about walking sideways please!). Have I justified my existence, and job? Simon.

Any chance of a crab Simon? LOL

im new to collecting bait can anybody tell me how to collect sandeels

Simon, I can confirm the presence of crab hormones in my brain. As a scouser, I keep pinching stuff and now I know why. I sincerely hope you get your ?250,000 as I am very fond of prawn cocktail coleslaw from Sainsburys. Which I rob.