Need some help from lads that might be in the know, might be a long one...
This will be my first full summer fishing and I am keen to learn about and collect my own bait. Have spoken to a couple of lads from off here about collecting and read this and that on this forum and others. Here is the story so far and any advice would be greatly appreciated:
So I headed out Saturday morning for my first crab hunt, lovely sunny day for it. Still wasn't, and apparently still not, sure what I was doing. So I am on the banks of the Tweed estuary rooting around, lifting the weed, turning over rocks and trying to think like a crab. Not having any success (only at it for 15min or so) and then I find 2 old tyres, not traps I don't think if they were that was a long time ago. No mud in the middle of them, just around the inside rim of the tyre itself, so pulled the tyre out the ground and emptied all the mud out. In the mud I found 7 crabs, 3 or 4 of which were decent size and very docile. They were all totally covered in black mud so couldn't really check them out but was hopeful.
Brought them home, washed them off and checked them out. None of them were peelers but as said some very docile. Put the docile ones in a washing up bowl with some water and covered in wet sea weed, put the others in water in another container (water taken from tweed at low tide) and put them in the garage. Checked them last night and wet sea weed again and added more water, just a bit, to washing up bowl. I am tending to these things like pets by the way
Gets up this morning and me and the little one head out out the garage to check on them. Now some how all the ones that were docile and i had hoped were going to peel soon had got out of the bloody washing up bowl, luckily I had put both containers in a kayak (think red Indian type) I have in the garage. The bowl they were in is a good 5 inches deep! How the hell did they manage that?!? Team work or something! So I put them back in with fresh water and sea weed re-soaked. They remained in there all day but are quite active now. They are currently all in a bucket full of water taken from the tweed about 15 min ago (on the flood)
Where did I go wrong?
Do crabs that are not trying or anywhere near ready to peel hide in the mud at low tide? Could it be that all of these had recently peeled? (they were and are hard, surely i couldn't be that unlucky) Could the fact the water i had them in was taken at low tide so very little salt content? Why have they seemingly become more active?
I thought I was making baby steps forward with bait collecting but now I am puzzled. It is a learning curve. Any ideas?
I plan on giving them a good drink now, putting them back in as they were and see how it goes.
This will be my first full summer fishing and I am keen to learn about and collect my own bait. Have spoken to a couple of lads from off here about collecting and read this and that on this forum and others. Here is the story so far and any advice would be greatly appreciated:
So I headed out Saturday morning for my first crab hunt, lovely sunny day for it. Still wasn't, and apparently still not, sure what I was doing. So I am on the banks of the Tweed estuary rooting around, lifting the weed, turning over rocks and trying to think like a crab. Not having any success (only at it for 15min or so) and then I find 2 old tyres, not traps I don't think if they were that was a long time ago. No mud in the middle of them, just around the inside rim of the tyre itself, so pulled the tyre out the ground and emptied all the mud out. In the mud I found 7 crabs, 3 or 4 of which were decent size and very docile. They were all totally covered in black mud so couldn't really check them out but was hopeful.
Brought them home, washed them off and checked them out. None of them were peelers but as said some very docile. Put the docile ones in a washing up bowl with some water and covered in wet sea weed, put the others in water in another container (water taken from tweed at low tide) and put them in the garage. Checked them last night and wet sea weed again and added more water, just a bit, to washing up bowl. I am tending to these things like pets by the way
Gets up this morning and me and the little one head out out the garage to check on them. Now some how all the ones that were docile and i had hoped were going to peel soon had got out of the bloody washing up bowl, luckily I had put both containers in a kayak (think red Indian type) I have in the garage. The bowl they were in is a good 5 inches deep! How the hell did they manage that?!? Team work or something! So I put them back in with fresh water and sea weed re-soaked. They remained in there all day but are quite active now. They are currently all in a bucket full of water taken from the tweed about 15 min ago (on the flood)
Where did I go wrong?
Do crabs that are not trying or anywhere near ready to peel hide in the mud at low tide? Could it be that all of these had recently peeled? (they were and are hard, surely i couldn't be that unlucky) Could the fact the water i had them in was taken at low tide so very little salt content? Why have they seemingly become more active?
I thought I was making baby steps forward with bait collecting but now I am puzzled. It is a learning curve. Any ideas?
I plan on giving them a good drink now, putting them back in as they were and see how it goes.
