Crabbing, Squid and Bait Gathering

Mud crab and blue swimmer gear is simple: collapsible traps or witches hats, a float with your details, quality bait and a measuring gauge. What is not simple is the rulebook. Pot numbers per person, mandatory float and tag identification, mesh and trap type restrictions, and closed waters all vary by state and sometimes by individual estuary.

Size and sex rules are strict and heavily enforced. Female crabs in berry (carrying eggs) must be released everywhere in Australia, and taking any female mud crab is illegal in several jurisdictions. Measure every crab with a proper gauge across the correct points of the carapace before it goes in the bucket.

Bait choice does most of the work. Oily, tough baits — mullet frames, chicken carcass where permitted — hold in the trap and leach scent for hours. Set on a rising tide near mangrove drains and gutters, and check your traps often enough to comply with local rules.

Squidding needs very little: a light 7–8 foot rod rated around 2–4 kg or an egi-specific rod, a 2500 reel with 10 lb braid and a handful of jigs in sizes 2.5 and 3.0. Squid feed over weed and sand edges, and clear water over broken weed in 2–5 m is the classic Australian ground.

Jig weight matters more than colour. Shallow-sink jigs for weed beds you cannot hang up in, faster-sinking jigs for deeper edges and current. Work the jig in sharp double or triple whips followed by a long pause — squid attack on the pause.

Dawn, dusk and the hour either side of the tide change produce best. Southern Australia — Port Phillip, Spencer Gulf, WA's south-west and Tasmania's east coast — has world-class squid fishing, and a cheap outfit catches them perfectly well.

Yabby pumps for nippers, bait jigs for yellowtail and slimies, cast nets for herring and poddy mullet where legal, and a bait bucket with an aerator to keep it all alive. Live bait out-fishes dead bait for almost every Australian predator, and it costs nothing but time.

Cast nets are heavily restricted or prohibited in some states and waters, and net dimensions and mesh sizes are regulated where they are allowed. Never assume a net legal in Queensland is legal in NSW or Victoria.

Pumping nippers and collecting worms are also regulated activities in many marine parks and sanctuary zones. Check zoning maps — a lot of good bait ground sits inside no-take areas.