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