Figured I’d share a little information and photos of a little side hustle of mine. Gill netting bait for the local crabbers. Menhaden ( bunker ) is a common bait used for catching blue crabs in crab pots ( wire crab traps ). I geared up about ten years ago to catch and sell the commercial crabbers bait. This requires a commercial fishing license, a skiff , gill nets of all sizes, anchors , flags and poly balls to mark your nets. For the bait handling I bought freezers, a foot operated box stapler, and I get pallets of waxed boxes to freeze the fish in. The fish are frozen and sold in 40 lb boxes, known as “flats”. Normally I start fishing around mid February and fish through the end of April, sometimes into May ( or I get busy farming ). There’s always a market for this bait, crabbing is a Pretty big industry along Maryland’s coast.
I set the nets in the evening. Each net is anchored on each end with a danforth style anchor. Each end is marked with either a flag or poly ball, attached to the net. In the morning , I take my skiff to the nets to work them. I pull the nets in my boat, and shake the fish loose onto the deck. The fish are then shoveled into baskets, and put into the waxed boxes before freezing. The frozen fish are sold to different crabbers to be used as bait.

More

anyone ever try smoking those?

we used to get smoked chubs all the time and they are seldom available any more

I git a cousin smoking and filletting white fish that is some great stuff,
he was just sayin in Bayfield WI where the whitefish fishery is strong every local place has white fish fish fry

he fishes Green bay and has been doing well , has every pound he catches sold

Back when I had my offshore boat in the gulf, we bought at least one flat of pogeys - as we called them - every-time we left the dock. Could catch almost anything on them.

Once my freezers are cleared out, I’ll take a couple flats John.

I wonder if anyone has looked into usin

Nice!

People eat blue crab?!,,,,, …. I guessing you need old bay on that…..

Very interesting.

Hey John, what do you charge for a flat of bunker? Steamed blue crabs with old Bay seasoning are delicious.

The old bay or the crab?

Very interesting! Thanks for the pictures!

Hey! I have that same skiff!, use it for blue and green crabs and everything else. Used to enjoy gillnetting in the spring, sold lots of bunkers.
I buy all my bait now, a good friend of mine seines a couple hundred thousand pounds every year and used to get them at his price, cheap, lol
I no longer have a big freezer to work out of and now have to go to the bait dealer. Been paying through the nose for bait now....and too much of it is already sour....I get 10 flats at a time and put them in an outside chest freezer. You have a nice operation, would rater deal with you!, lol

Nice! Hard work and a good way to live. Priceless experience for your kids. My sons grew up fishing on the boat and it has carried them far in life

They were tough to come by this time last year over here on the DE coast... had to start the year out with a couple flats of freezer burnt last years bunker... haven't checked this year yet.

I've been approached by Oregon crabbers for band sawed chunks of beaver carcass for crab bait. The norm has always been mink carcasses for commercial crabbers.

I used to use anise oil,,, it worked good for catching,,,, not so good for eating…

Coop, I hear from guys trying to net perch in the Delaware Bay this year that they are getting filled up with bunker. Can’t hardly catch perch for bunker so we should have plenty of crab bait this year.

I have always said there are two ways. You can tell when somebody’s not from Delaware or Maryland. One is they do not eat blue crabs and two they don’t eat scrapple.

Steamed crabs Kool Ice, Cambridge Md. yesterday.

#!'s @ $150/bushel
#2's and sooks @ @100/bushel

Florida or Louisiana crabs this time of year.

Nah, there’s bycatch of perch, trout, and other better eating fish. Never tried to cook a bunker.

Sounds good you got my number!



Vinke you’re comments are like sticky boogers, better off to just leave them alone so I don’t make a mess lol. Blue crabs are excellent- if ya know how to pick them.

I’m getting $25 for a frozen flat out of my freezers. Or $25 for a full fish basket fresh off the boat, which is about 1.5 flats.



Love that boat. She carries her weight well , and will take a beating on a rough day. I’ve had her 8 miles in the ocean catching flounders on wrecks lol

I have never had it,,,,,
But,,,, it is a on going joke around my circle about old bay….
So people from your side were visiting and we having a dungy crap night.
They wanted to know why there was no old bay in the boil….

We all rolled are eyes and looked at each other….

You ever heard of JO Seasoning? It’s good, better than old bay in my opinion. More of a light flake salt seasoning, JO #2 is what I use when steaming crabs

Never tried the dungys Vinke, I’d like to come catch some and try a boil first hand sometime

Soft shelled crabs are one of my favorite foods. Right behind deviled crab.

Soft crabs are hard to beat, love them fried on a sandwich. Care to share your deviled crab recipe?

I don't have one. I just always order deviled crab when at a seafood place.

This is sure different than combining soybeans.

Lol sure is Bob! A little supplemental income , and it gives me a workout before sitting on a tractor/sprayer all day!

In my old stomping grounds of southeast Alaska, mink carcasses out-fished any other bait for crab, hands-down. Of course used lots of filleted salmon carcasses, chopped up pink salmon, and other things, even marten carcasses, (which caught nothing, interestingly), but mink was the #1 draw, by far.

^^^^
Have you ever tried deer heads for spot prawn? Work crazy good.

Interesting stuff. Never tried or even heard of using red meat for crab bait. Bunker is pretty standard here. Sometimes bluefish, shad, razor clams.

I caught a crab trap full of mullet once using rabbit food alfalfa pellets in the bait cage.

Nice photos, very interesting post.

Try a beaver head.. by the second check with that head in the pot it’s consistently the best pot of the day.

Here, bluefish will out catch bunkers...by a lot, but they dry out fast in a freezer, bunkers are standard cause they're plentiful and cheap, but the price per frozen 40# flats were 70 cents per pound for locals this past summer, 90 for the Lunds put ups from jersey. Not so cheap anymore... I can sometimes get bluefish for 60 cents....Herring works, a little better than bunkers, but is usually more expensive and it's a softer bait so gets eaten up a little faster.

Best all time crab bait is sliced up false albacore, nasty bloody and oily buggers, used to get them free from a gillnetter friend but the market will take them now, so that stopped, lol

We don't have a source of meat baits, so have no idea how it would work, the sporties use chicken legs, but bunkers will out fish those... So that's east coast crab bait 101... lol

I agree GCS. Bluefish is better but goes ripe quicker in warm water, and doesn’t keep well frozen. I sell bluefish to the market, it gets a good price early then falls off. Been too windy last couple days to set my nets, but got them back in the water tonight. Should have a good catch tomorrow. Fingers crossed

My crab pots will consist of each of these baits come mid summer. I’ll try it... once anyway!

Bear bits work really well too

read a post somewhere that a guy tried to pull a stunt on his friend and stuffed a dead skunk in one of his crab pots. Supposedly that pot caught crabs like never before, and kept catching quite awhile even when the skunk was long gone, lol

Maybe we need skunk enhanced bunkers!.

Feral beef cattle are occasioanlly used for king crab bait in a particular area in Alaska.

man that could spike the price of whole frozen skunk

The only crab I know anything about are dungeness. They follow their noses to a high degree. Scent is very important when fishing them.

I'll bet the oils put off by things like skunk and ranch mink carcasses have a lot to do them them being great bait.

Commercial dungeness fisheries are usually very competetive derby style fisheries. It amazes me that most of the guys I know pretty much all use the same bait; humpies.

I've used the mink carcass also.....

Dungeon esssssss = good eats

Side note : I went to an all you can eat crab fest one time at a casino......thinking to myself , ima gonna eat this place outta business


Nope .......no dungeness..... it was snow crab ...lol


Takes an hour to Crack a Dixie cup worth of meat

Skunk enhanced bunkers, now ya got my wheels turning.

Cause my freezers don’t stink enough already lol?!

My little civet carcasses are just the right size to fit in the bait cages. Saved several carcasses to put them to the test.