Stone Crabs

Cut Ladyfish or any cut fish will work. I used to use whatever fish racks I had on hand.
Whenever I filet a fish I would save the racks in the freezer for crab trap bait.

 

Chunks of shark or stingray work great and will last a long time.

 

Pigs feet works and last a long time in the trap. We shoot the hogs on our hunting lease and use the feet for bait.

 

Are there stone crabs to be trapped in central Floridas east coast?

 

The more oily the fish the better. Mullet need to be fresh if frozen they get mushy.

 

Stone crabs are every in Florida. My favorite crabs to eat for sure . I can catch mine free diving inlets and causeways in intercoastal when water is clean.

 

We run a combination of over 900 blue and stone traps.

Pig feet are go to bait for stonnies. They will last aprox 10-14 days even when water is warm. Stone traps do not have to be run as often as blue crab traps, they are communal like lobster and will attract other stones once they are in your trap. You can use things like fish heads, shad ect, but these will normally only last a max of 4 days- as the water gets warmer that goes to about 2 days. You should use a longer soak time for stones as they do not populate the traps as fast as the blues can as they move slower and will not swim distances looking for the bait. You can also effectively catch them in blue crab wire traps but that will not work for getting blues in a stone plastic box trap as the blues will swim out- on these types of traps the stones crawl up the side of the trap and fall into the funnel and they have a hard time getting out as they don't swim so well.

2017/18 has been a bad year for commercial stone crabbing as the hurricanes tore up traps and the guys boats and once they got to the water finally in November- the catches have been way down. This was probably also caused by the storms moving the crab out of historically productive areas. What this did has also caused the prices to go into what I call a stupid mode. with all sizes nearly doubling what they were last year.

 

They work better cleaned off. We buy them by the pallet and the hairy stinky ones just do not perform as well as the clean ones.

 

What time should I come over boss

 

Thanks for the info. Is it still fun with so many traps?

 

Is it still fun- Absolutely NOT. I let someone else run them most of the time but go occasionally to se what is going on and to be on the water. The biggest headaches are keeping them clean, repaired and the thieves out of them.

 

I can't imagine having that many traps. I hope your season turns around.

 

I’m gonna be trying chicken necks and the racks of any fish I catch. Hopefully I can get one or two keepers on the east side

 

Is it legal to keep stone crab if you catch them in a blue crab trap?

 

As long as it's your trap and you have a fishing license1