Page 54 - Demo

A nice dinner-plate sized mud crab ready for the The author with good-sized Lake Cootharaba crabs. table.
CWrabbing after Christmas
I S H I N G six or seven years I’ve one or two crabs most a merry owned it, so I would days since. Christmas only be guessing. I buy heaps of gear
Noosa to Fraser Coast
by CRAIG TOMKINSON
and happy new year Anyway, I took the online now, all are Aus-
to Ben, his family, the team at BNB and the readers of this great mag and e-mag.
over the side of the boat to see the red glow of spanner crabs bogged on the net – just look after the undersized crabs, and try not to break any legs off when getting them out of the net.
crabbing so mind- calming.
five out of the motor and, before I drove to my local dealer, I looked them up online – it said they were all the same sized anodes, for 20hp right up to the 70hp motors.
sie companies and are based in Sydney, Mel- bourne or Brisbane.
What can we ex- pect fishing-wise this month, with January knocking on the door?
The 20-minute drive towing the boat to Lake Cootharaba, putting the boat in the water, the boat ride to the pots and back to the ramp – it’s so relaxing, I love it.
The other day I went to local parts place, who had always given me a good deal.
Well, tuna and mack- erel should be around in better numbers, so too sweetlip and mud crabs, sand crabs and spanner crabs – all are worth trying for.
Hopefully, we’ll start to get wet season rain by January, and if we do and the weather is not too bad, I will slip off Noosa a bit more and chase sweetlip and tuskfish in close.
I’ve been using chick- en carcasses from the local supermarket for bait.
I got to the dealer and they said they had one and would have to order the rest in for me.
I was after four genu- ine Anderson plugs for solar gear I was wiring up.
From Noosa, one of the things I used to love doing on days I went offshore, was to take out a few spanner crab flat traps and drop them in not far from where I was fishing.
While the crabbing hasn’t been earth-shat- tering, I’ve had worse.
I came home, looked online, ordered and got 10 genuine Anderson plugs for $28, delivered to my door.
Between 30-40m off Noosa was good.
I have not wet a line in my own boat for weeks, if not months – since I came back from the Cape trip.
My old 60hp four- stroke is getting on.
I drove home and or- dered online, and they arrived in a few days for half the money.
I have been looking at buying another 80- 100L upright fridge for the back of the Toyota LandCruiser 80 series – I don’t have to worry about buy- ing a fridge slide, just more concerned about the weight in the old girl.
Once the spanner crab pots were out, I’d slip back to a bit of reef and have a fish for 30-40 minutes, then go back and check the pots.
I had such a great time up north this year and the fishing was so mind blowing, I just haven’t wanted to go.
It’s a 2005 model, so I thought it was time to check the anodes in the block again.
I have to say, I am getting sick of being ripped off by local busi- nesses.
There’s nothing like
working your backside
off to pull the pots up
by hand and looking then none, but I find Page 54 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, January 2021
I would say how many hours, but it’s never been hooked to a diag- nostic machine in the
The next day I put my pots back in the lake and have been getting
I have a 55L Mit- subishi upright fridge * continued P55 www.bnbfishing.com.au
Fishing-wise, I’m a dud.
So as long as I am getting the odd crab for my lovely wife Donna, I am happier than a pig in you know what.
I thought stuff that.
Moral of the story – I will never buy them lo- cally again either.
But I’ve been doing a bit of crabbing off and on for weeks.
Lucky I did, as there wasn’t much left of them after many hours of use.
Anyway, I fitted the new anodes and gave the motor a run to see if it was leaking water, but it was all good.
Occasionally I’ll get one or two a day and
They also said it’s a special type that only fits that particular mo- tor and they would take a while to come – a week or two – and are not cheap.
I drove there and they had one for about $13.