Fall in number of Blue Swimmer Crabs in Gulf St Vincent

[archerfish 685]

From ABC News:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-08/crab-disappearance-baffles-fishers/4616632?section=sa

[catch fillet release 22]

the last 5 months i have not seen 'one'normally pull at least a dozen in via the rodsnot goodcfr

[urhookedfish 12]

the last 5 months i have not seen 'one'normally pull at least a dozen in via the rodsnot goodcfr

Are crabs and prawns the first to react to the effects of hyper salination?Its odd that you havent noticed a steady decline in the last five months and have not seen any at all. This to me indicates more that although the stocks are down, that they have infact not shown up in your area.

[wisdom 0]

Before jumping to any conclusions, I would like to hear from Dennis Holder, the licensed blue crab pot holder in Gulf of St. Vincent as to the level of his catches in the past six months. If one could get a truthful answer, as he would be able to give an indication of biomass movement.Or maybe PIRSA could help out here, interestingly PIRSA's recreational manager is also the commercial blue crab fishery manager. How's that for the fox in charge of the chicken house routine ?

[4THALOVE 45]

Funny that I have had the best season of blueys ever locally 2 nets half hour to an hour seen me get around 40-60 crabs ( with 2or more of us on board ) Some of the biggest I have caught as well Cheers 4THA

[Kingsley 19]

Nice one 4THA. The only strange thing this year is that for some reason they have not marched south very far.... must be the desal, that's down south right?

[trihull 177]

Been out twice recently, no problem with the blueys, caught plenty on the rods, didn't have bait for the crab nets, or I would have cleaned up on them... and had size to them as well...Off O/H that is.....

[4THALOVE 45]

Nice one 4THA. The only strange thing this year is that for some reason they have not marched south very far.... must be the desal' date=' that's down south right? [/quote']Not to sure kingsley All mine have come from the south, south of the black pole that is :silly: What is this " desal you talk of " have I missed something

[Tacklebags 404]

As per the other thread I started on this topic....I question the snapper increase theory portayed by the Professor when the promotion of snapper biomass increases are based on unprecedented increased fishing effort in ST Vincent Gulf?

[Savage 297]

This year has been pretty dismal for me personally.Last few years around early Feb, the old boy and I would go out with 2-3 nets and come back with 70-80 in about 3-4 hours from one spot.This year however, in 4-5hours and several moves later, only provided our best of 22.When i first bought my boat 5.5years ago, i dont remember seeing the 'commecial' aka pro fishing boat close to shore. In the past 2-3 years, They have been raping the whole 5-7m line from North Haven to Grange. Thats around 15km.Maybe thats why you havent seen them march down south Kingsley!!These pro's have MASSIVE vessels, go out where the reccies dont have access to. My 2 cents

[Kingsley 19]

Reckon you might be onto something there Savage.my desal comment was tongue in cheek btw ;)didn't you know that all problems with our marine environment are directly related to the desal? and aliens.

[Savage 297]

hahaha yeh i got that :)One day Kingsly, one day the desal will get blamed and proven.Then it'll get shut down and there goes 2 bil + running costs.Then another 'genius' will come up with, hmmm why dont we try getting the rain run off, then filter that. hmmmmmmmNahhh dont be stupid. Thats too simple.

[Moggy23 625]

Nice one 4THA. The only strange thing this year is that for some reason they have not marched south very far.... must be the desal' date=' that's down south right? [/quote']Not to sure kingsley All mine have come from the south' date=' south of the black pole that is :silly: What is this " desal you talk of " have I missed something [/quote']Pesky things those crabs, can't go whiting fishing anymore with out pulling up those blueys on our rigs, should take some nets out one day.

[brenton 637]

Blue manna crabs in the gulfs are basically stuck in the gulfs and are a generally a tropical species,they can't be replenished from ocean stocks or spawn and to have a commercial blue crab industry that takes up to 600 tonnes is a joke,unsustainable and amounts to killing the goose that lays the golden egg.No matter when there gone the pro's will just move on to their next target species and do it all over again.The examples of this type of behavior far outway any examples of responsible commercial practices 100 to 1.We could on the other hand reduce rec bag limits to keep the cash rolling into a select fews pockets... how else are they going to get the missus an new mercedes. cheers brenton

[waspy 3]

I have to agree with CFR and kingsley ,this year i havent got one wheras before i could at least get a couple every trip ,about 3 years ago i heard they were seen moving up the onk in great numbers but havent heard anything this year ,it has been documented that the blue crabs have deserted the southern areas and are mainly being caught in the northern areas in numbers why ,who knows but they dont seem to be around in the places i used to catch them ,year before last around seacliff and brighton on a weekend it was like doing a slalom course around all the pot bouys havent seen to many out there this year.Will they return to the southern areas ? hope so might just be a migratory thing this year but with the ever increasing ammounts of pro boats be either squid or crab or snapper i think it can only be bad for the species survival ,long gone are the days were it was just a few fisherman targetting these creatures from boats and jetties oh and just a litle grizzel ,when out on sunday i went to retrieve and looky,looky in the water snapper carcasses right where you retrieve ,if the person is on this sight let me tell you now, if i ever see you doing this practice i will report you to the police without hesitation and i urge other members to do the same either put thwm in a bin or take the bloody things home with you DONT DO IT! end grizzel .

[wisdom 0]

Must be a story in tomorrows Advertiser, as they rang me this afternoon for comment on the current blue crab issue, I declined ( now that's unusual ), and passed on the Chair of SARFAC's number ! Be interesting to read the comments.

[brenton 637]

why would you decline the offer if you thought your views were relevent. cheers brenton

[wisdom 0]

Good question, but commenting in the media without all the facts is suicide. Haven't seen the full picture yet but certainly know the distant history.

[troll04 0]

I was talking to a mate he said that he had to work hard for a feed but had manage to get a feed on the few times he gone out from north haven

[Knackers 696]

I've been involved in fishing for crabs both recreationally and as a worker on a line lincence for a long time. The line lincence going back at least 20 years. In fact a law got passed just for us, one 18 ft boat, 2 snorklers, picking crabs up off the bottom. The law passed was that you could not snorkel for crabs on a licence. And this was just us. I reckon we would have been lucky to get a tonne as it was only a side earner in really good conditions.Now we have hundreds of tonnes being taken out of the Gulf. I was a Port Julia in Jun/Jul last year and a pro was still out potting. These aren't normal pots/traps, about the same size as a kids smimming pool. It has to stop. The crabs do come out of the sand in winter and in deep water to get a feed.About a month ago I snorkled most of the St Kilda channel almost out to the black pole. Not a crab. If you have stuck your head in the water in these spots in Feb/Mar you would now that this is impossible in living memory (at least my long dead grandfather).At least one of these pros was at Ceduna and screwed the crabs there. Not sure whether it was one of the chaps mentioned though.To put it in perspective. We have one boat with say 100 8 x 8 ft traps. They do a run where they lay them 100m apart each day. That is 10 km. Now assume they do that from Pt Gawler towards Pt Wakefield when the weather permits. I'll be conservative, 150 days. That is 1500km of pot runs. So it is maybe 60 km from Pt Gawler to Pt Wakefield. So they get a very good coverage. Remember the crabs pretty well travel in one direction close to the coast. So in six good days your pots cover the advance and retreat of all the crabs on the eastern side of the gulf. You can do the sums.The pro crabbers do not report a drop in catches because they have an established market and need to maintain it. So they increase the effort to maintain the catch. They are doing this by going deeper. That is why most folks do not see a difference. And for those that still catch them you'd be south of outer harbour or out wide because the worst thing for the pros is to take recs to see them in popular areas. (cont)

[Knackers 696]

So this is a classic collapse scenario. The pros keep saying that catches aren't falling but the average punter sees them disappearing from areas they always were.My evidence may seem pretty slim but enough people keep saying the same thing.My primary income has never been from fishing. On Mum's Grandfather's side they were all pro hook and net fisherman. Some of the 2nd cousins still are. But sometimes enough is enough.SAVE THE CRABS

[catch fillet release 22]

the last 5 months i have not seen 'one'normally pull at least a dozen in via the rodsnot goodcfr

Are crabs and prawns the first to react to the effects of hyper salination?Its odd that you havent noticed a steady decline in the last five months and have not seen any at all. This to me indicates more that although the stocks are down' date=' that they have infact not shown up in your area.[/quote']my neighbour fishes for just squid and crabs , north of my zone.he goes regularly thru summer and this year his boats just catching dust.i have never known the blueys to be running 4 months late.not even the big ally crab pro hasnt been sighted in this area.....ive seen 1 small crab in 4 months......... 'poof'....they vanishedcfr

[Knackers 696]

SAVE THE CRABS

[Cleaver 65]

They fished them out in some parts of the USA. Since banning commercial crabbing in these areas they are making a recovery.

[brenton 637]

SAVE THE CRABS

Amen and you above comments make perfect sense.p.s the other side of the gulf this year there is hardly a crab to be seen. cheers brenton

[Savagelip 4]

yep, was quiet compared to last yr.. only managed a dozen males hardly a female in sight

[netman21 0]

i personally did,nt have a bad session at semaphore this year with three nets 36 blue crabs all keepers all male in 8 and half hours also i reckon dropping the crab limit to 20 crabs 4 land based crabbers is a bit steep when it is the boat limit that should be dropped which was way over extravergent in the first place from 120 to 80 and for land based crabbers from 40 to 30 or 25 not 20 that i believe would be fair as jetty based crabbing is,nt the main cause could,nt say the same 4 some rakers out there unfortanatly

[chuckemback 0]

My theory is the juvinile snapper have eaten the crab eggs larvae whatever you wanna callem over the last 5 or so years in the northen parts of gulf st vincent where the crabs traditionaly were in great numbers.If you told me 25 years ago that it would be possible to catch blueys from glenelg through to brighton (landbased) areas and beyond ,i woulda said BULLCRAP NFW!! It was possible to catch a few from the semaphore jetty amongst the more predominant sandys.Question i have is why have the crabs moved further south since 2004? And now seem to be declining in 2012-2013 from the southern areas of the gulf since the water temps are higher than normal according to the Govt?

[Trouta 6]

Being a new boat owner and not a crab eater, i gave it a go cause my girlfriend likes them during my holidays, both efforts pulled in over 20+ crabs and very big sizes, heading out again saturday with the nets so see how we go

[Just Me 0]

Being a new boat owner and not a crab eater' date=' i gave it a go cause my girlfriend likes them during my holidays, both efforts pulled in over 20+ crabs and very big sizes, heading out again saturday with the nets so see how we go[/quote']Let's lynch 'em fellas