11-5-19 Shrews and Sink

[mootz62]

Made a trip with 13 traps baited with chicken. Tried Shrews first. 2 runs 2 small jimmies with a ton of females. Headed to Sink. Better there. Ended up with 3 dozen 5 to 6 inch jimmies. Still a lot of females. Females galore for last 2 months.  Size down too. Hope it goes back to good old days next year.  Picture below.

[BirdsNestKing]

Good haul
Enjoy

[tattoo]

nice catch , enjoy em

[Capt. Frank]

I must have seen you on Tuesday near Oceanic.   Yes the females were down from 98% of those caught to maybe 10%.  The males were brown bottomed but just cracking the 5 inch mark.  A few plus 6 inchers.  But disappointing size for this time of year.

Did you see the huge flock of ducks (100's)  on that sand bar the clam off of west of Barley Point near buoy#11? 

Made a trip with 13 traps baited with chicken. Tried Shrews first. 2 runs 2 small jimmies with a ton of females. Headed to Sink. Better there. Ended up with 3 dozen 5 to 6 inch jimmies. Still a lot of females. Females galore for last 2 months.  Size down too. Hope it goes back to good old days next year.  Picture below.

[fshman]

Sink very disappointing as it's usually best after labor day. Maybe overcrabbed this summer and females being thrown back were only thing left. I often wonder in July and August with 20 boats a day just out of Oceanic getting bushel each how many crabs can keep replenishing themselves. I really feel this summer with only one weekend of rain was beautiful for the recreational folks and left us nada for prime time now.

[#1 JIMMY]

Agree totally. Too many "jugging" crabbers with a few dozen traps each and catching multiple bushels of crabs each and every day during July and August have depleted the reserve of male crabs this fall and basically only left female crabs  . I crab the old school way handlines and a few traps from my anchored boat and take only what I can eat which is a half bushel every other week or so. Granted female crabs come in and are the main catch in September but this year has been different. Small male crabs and not that many of them in October and November which is prime time for jumbo males.Maybe it is just a bad year but when I go out and see hundreds of trap floats looks like a sea of oranges floating maybe it is time to put boat limits not just per crabber limits. Just my thoughts. Been crabbing the Shrewsbury since 1971

[Capt. Frank]

I agree 100%.   It's a weird year.  I've been crabbing the Navesink years since Chris Landing in Sea Bright ( Shrewsbury)  closed in the 1980's.  It's a disappointing year.  That happens.  The over abundance of females like August- October generate there. I've never seen.

I started to keep an electronic log-  Here is November in recent years:

Crab Trap History         
DATE-      PLACE   
                                                        TOTAL                        SST (Degr)       Maj Tide
11/4/2014 NAVESINK JUGGING                33 Lrg & Med Males   49.6⁰              Lo 13:18
11/11/14  Navesink JUGGIN                67 Lrg & Med males   49.2⁰              Hi 11:48
11/3/2015 NAVESINK & SHREWSBURY        47 large males          56.3⁰            Hi 14:24
11/8/2016  NAVESINK                        84 large males          51.7              Hi 14:54
11/3/2017  NAVESINK                        82 medium MIX          58.8              Lo 1548
11/7/2018  NAVESINK                        47 Medium                 54.6             Lo 1518
11/5/2019   NAVESINK (Anchored)        23 Mediums                 54.4             Hi 15:30


There all kinds of theories why.  Like too much or little rain. Too hot.   Too much or little sea cabbage floating along.

 Jugging truly is the way to get a huge haul and is far superior to anchoring.  Obviously crabbing in a dozen different spots at the same time  or some here THREE DOZEN different spots should be more efficient.  A lot more work is put in.  In fact I anchored last Tuesday b/c I did not feel like running a boat around picking up floats for 3 or 4 hours.  RELAXATION. Or laziness.  Whatever.  

And it's stating the obvious outcome- that keeping only males throwing back all females until that's almost all that's left is the result. Like in August-October in the Sink.  In Barnie, nearly no one jugs and just anchors.  And they get their share of big males as recently as last week. Go figure.  It's probably a combination of the obvious and the unknown(s).    

Agree totally. Too many "jugging" crabbers with a few dozen traps each and catching multiple bushels of crabs each and every day during July and August have depleted the reserve of male crabs this fall and basically only left female crabs  . I crab the old school way handlines and a few traps from my anchored boat and take only what I can eat which is a half bushel every other week or so. Granted female crabs come in and are the main catch in September but this year has been different. Small male crabs and not that many of them in October and November which is prime time for jumbo males.Maybe it is just a bad year but when I go out and see hundreds of trap floats looks like a sea of oranges floating maybe it is time to put boat limits not just per crabber limits. Just my thoughts. Been crabbing the Shrewsbury since 1971

[CrabberGrabber]

Recreational crabbing is just a drop in the bucket compared to the overall number of crabs out there.  The crabbing pressure hasn't changed that much that it you would cause a change is population sex ratio and average size of crabs.  There's many environmental factors that go into crabs growing so we just need to chalk it up to a down year.  All those medium sized crabs we had this year will hopefully grow to mumbo status next year. 

[Crabber1988]

What part of Navisink did you go I want to take my fiancé crabbing for a thanksgiving feast with family

[mootz62]

Generally crab around the Oceanic bridge.

[Capt. Frank]

Kind of limited with Oceanic marina rentals.  Range and open boat weather toughness will likely keep you around Oceanic Bridge which is choice grounds for me.

Generally crab around the Oceanic bridge.