hard backed swimming crabs

[paulthespark]

can anyone tell me why hard back swimming crabs are ,as a bait totally rubbish and if you used them as a bait live or dead you,d never get a bite in a month of sundays,yet when you open up a cod,s stomache it,s alway,got at least one and sometimes more inside it. anybody know the reason for this.

[Oblickta]

good point, maybes the old bucket mouths dont like the taste of elastic or they not into bondage

[Charlie_Thompson]

Don't know why but hard backed crabs just don't really do it as bait - lads have crushed them, mushed them, painted them red and white, blended them, juiced them, even distilled the essence through huge wizard like apparatuses and kept it in small bottles with tiny corks in. (edit - some people have even done things with ladies tights - I do not like ladies tights they remind me of my Nanas clothes horse and Headmistresses) Doesn't work!

Doc who used to post here will no why, he/she is very clever.

[gazzawill]

i think it has something to do with the blood or something in hard back crabs once frozen it releses a toxin (like the gills in crabs) and taints the flesh / meat
cant remember where i read this but if i think on ill post details

[Charlie_Thompson]

gazzawill / Grasshopper - do not attempt to know the mind of the Cod, just be one with your quarry

If Cods don't like hard back crabs on a hook don't use them - accept it without question.

I live with many similar mysteries and cosmic connundrums(?) the main one at the moment being how come I always want a poo at the same time every morning regardless of food intake, timing, footwear, location etc .....

8:00 am on the dot.

Now whether I answer that call is a diferrent matter based on earth bound practical considerations. I always use this formula on non work days

If E=urge to go and M=damage caused to health by crawling to toilet

c=long term damge caused by defecating in the marital bed

then obviously E=Mc2

Hard Backed crabs are for kids to get scared by on the beach and removing bait elastic from your pennels

[gazzawill]

lmao to true charlie

[KeithB]

Do the cod not go for the swimming crabs when they are SWIMMING, i.e. it's more to do with the movement than the scent / taste? afterall a lead pirk doesn't give off much scent.

[Charlton]

try float fishing small hard backed crab just over the top of weed beds in deep water. They will catch cod and wrasse. Many years ago and old gent used to use nothing but mashed doggers mixed with dog hair or in a fine nylon mesh and caught some very big cod out in his small boat just off Whitley bay fishing the weed beds.

[RobAdair]

I would agree with Keith about the movement triggering a strike. In the Baltic Sea (especially around Denmark and Germany) they fly fish for cod using a floating imitation crab fly on a short leader with a sinking line. As the line is stripped the crab dives to the bottom and between strips it rises from the bottom. Most takes are between strips as the crab appears to "swim" up from the bottom and are normally quite ferocious as opposed to fishing a static crab bait for cod. Now considering that these "flies" are crude imitations cut from foam and cork with no scent, it must purely be the action that catches the attention of the cod as there will be no scent trail in the water to follow.

[peter.m]

"I live with many similar mysteries and cosmic connundrums(?) the main one at the moment being how come I always want a poo at the same time every morning regardless of food intake, timing, footwear, location etc .....

8:00 am on the dot."

same with me Charlie same time every morning so I spoke to the doctor. He didn't seem to see a problem until I told him I didn't get up until 9.00am