CRAB GRAB
Last week readers may recall I had met a friendly chap at the Port Hedland boat ramp who was happy to display his catch of blue manna crabs and give an approximate location, which was firmly planted in the memory bank. My wife Viv is very keen on this sweet seafood, so three days later we had a day off and gave it a shot. As were departing at 10am, a boisterous bunch of blokes were also heading in the same direction, drinking beers on the way and I commented to Viv that they were looking slightly dangerous. After pulling our eight pots twice, in thirty feet or water, for only one crab, it was looking pretty dismal, so I decided to head to shallower water with immediate success. We were using chicken necks for bait, which thread nicely onto thin wire, making it hard for the crabs to disappear with it. Pretty soon we had fourteen good size crabs, but on the last pull I looked astern and could see a big bloke swimming alongside his boat, with two friends laughing away. Yes, it was our earlier mates and my first thought was that he had either gone for a swim or fallen overboard pulling pots. Soon enough though it became obvious that they had fouled the prop in the crab line and he was busy untangling it-umm!
So we managed to eat most of our catch that night, but there were two crabs left over that I had other plans for. Two weeks earlier while fishing I had caught a number of small bluebone, more correctly known as black spot tuskfish, which are an absolute delicacy, so I was keen to use some of the crabs for bait to entice a larger one. The next day I got out early but the crab burley was too attractive at the first spot as the sharks moved in big time. At the next spot, fishing with only a running bean sinker to a 7/0 octopus hook, I attached a whole half a crab and let it descend slowly to the bottom. A few small bites may have meant small fry, but then there was one huge whack, before I was immediately snagged. After a few minutes of battling I locked the drag up to bring about the inevitable when the line took off again and I was back in the game. Soon enough a nice tuskfish was safely boated with the 7/0 firmly planted in it’s head, explaining why the hook had not come out when snagged. Then the big trevally moved in, so I used the baitcaster for some fun and took fifteen minutes to land and then release a nice 6kg spotted trevally. At the same time the other rod in the holder took off, but I had no chance and this one went around the anchor line and snapped off. Then, as on a previous trip, the fish just shut down and that was that, so I spent the next hour or so sounding around for likely fishing ground for future reference. The bluebone was cooked fresh that night and I have to say that it was far more tender than the dhufish we had brought up, but I am guessing that was off a big male I had caught just before leaving home.
To answer last week’s question, the free website that can track large vessel movements around the world is Marine Tracker. This week’s question is, ‘What did a professional diver photograph a tuskfish using a rock for in 2011, which was regarded as the first documented use of a tool by Osteichthyes ( bony fish )?
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