Crab preparation and hooking peeler crab

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Crab preparation and hook
By ChaosinDevon

Here is a great step by step guide to using peeler crabs for sea fishing . A massive thank you to ChaosinDevon for the pics and the easy to follow steps to using peeler crab . Your a star

Step one .... get a crab..... a live one.




Step Two.... remove claws and legs.



Step Three.... locate the crack in the rear shell




Step Four..... peel forward the top half of the shell




Step Five...... remove the underside shell





Step Six...... slice into two halves





Step Seven........... like so....




Step Eight..... put both halves onto hook



Step Nine....... using bait elastic or coccoon cotton.....wrap the bait to the hook.




Step Ten........ the final item, note the hook is just protruding and the upper smaller hook is used to keep it all in place.

[New-2-Fishing]

WOW great post

so thats what a peeler crab looks like then!!...ive seen quite a few of them in rock pools....there different from the other crabs arnt they?....


charlotte

[pingu]

excellant post guys well done

[john-boy]

Originally Posted by New-2-Fishing

WOW great post

so thats what a peeler crab looks like then!!...ive seen quite a few of them in rock pools....there different from the other crabs arnt they?....


charlotte

They're different because they are getting ready to shed their shell as part of the growing process.

A crab's said to be "peeling" when there's a new (soft) version of it's shell underneath the existing hard one.

Sometimes, if the crab is close to "popping", then you can see the main shell starting to lift at the back, but a more normal way to test is to try and remove the last segment of one of it's back legs, if it comes away and there's a perfect replica of the piece you've taken off, it's ready to peel.

If you pull and nothing gives, then stop, otherwise, you'll end up with a crab with a limp!!

Cheers,
JB.

[New-2-Fishing]

lol very funny john....good advice

[tjnorton]

Great post for the people who are always asking.

tj

[john-boy]

Top set of pictures, btw, chaps!!

If the crab's a reasonable size, I also tend to lift the side of the shell and cut out the gills, with the shell they are attached to, thus getting a really soft crab... I sometimes also cut off the plate under his mouth too, if that's too hard to peel.. I'm a bit obsessive with having no hard bits left at all, but I'm sure the fish aren't so fussy!! LOL.

Also, I tend to cut the crab in half with scissors before pulling his legs off, as I guess that way he's already dead.

Cheers,
JB.

[New-2-Fishing]

Originally Posted by john-boy

Top set of pictures, btw, chaps!!

If the crab's a reasonable size, I also tend to lift the side of the shell and cut out the gills, with the shell they are attached to, thus getting a really soft crab... I sometimes also cut off the plate under his mouth too, if that's too hard to peel.. I'm a bit obsessive with having no hard bits left at all, but I'm sure the fish aren't so fussy!! LOL.

Also, I tend to cut the crab in half with scissors before pulling his legs off, as I guess that way he's already dead.

Cheers,
JB.

eeeeeww i was just thinking about the crab being alive when u pull legs off...it seems a bit cruel

John...that sounds a better way i think

charlotte

but no offence to ChaosinDevon & Richard though

[Norfolkboy]

Great tips and post, pictures etc.

[Ben]

nice 1 mr devon!