to gill or not to gill....that is the question?

[macky]

do you think it is really nescesery to gill/lung/ your crab before using them???

i have caught fish with the lungs taken out
and caught fish with them left in
and not noticed any diffrence in catch rates

which do you prefer???

macky

[MikeR]

I reckon that it\'s not neccessary. A cod doesn\'t disect a crab before it eats it. Saying that, someone will be along shortly to prove me wrong!

[macky]

my thoughts exactly mike

cant really picture it can you....

a cod picking the gills out of a crab before it scoffs it down.....lol

macky

[Ell]

Maybe the tradition of taking them out has occured over time for a reason, we\'ve been fishing since Time Team Time. There must be a reason why we are told to remove them. Personally I can\'t see them ADDING to the attractiveness of the bait, I don\'t put umbrellas up in the house, It doesn\'t take long to nip em out anyway

[Edited on 26/6/2004 by Ell]

[BriH]

I was told that the gills produce a toxin when the crab is dead ,so by leaving them in would render it useless, dont know how true it is but all of mine have had them out ,so if i dont catch owt this winter i wont be able to blame my bait - which you would do if you \"changed\" the way you prepared them from years past - Bit like wearing the same trainers before going to the match \"cos they won last week when you wore them \" - Been there done that (most bloody games to be honest.

[willywetegg]

Whether or not it does or does not help ALL of mine get done. As BriH says, if you don\"t catch you will just be wondering if it was your bait.

[alan]

I often leave mine in if they are fresh (alive) and seem to catch as much or as little as when i take them out,if i\'ve got the time to prepare them or if i\'am freezing them i always take them out.
I always take them out if i\'am using small hooks and targeting flatties.

[peter.m]

I\'m sure I\'ve seen empty shells with them attached. Still the same remove them because that\'s what I\'ve always been told is best.

[BILLYB]

If you use your crab fresh it does not matter if you gill or not , it only matters if you are going to freez your crab as the gill turn black and ruin your crab this is all the germs or toxins as someone has already said start to go of very quick and ruin the nice smell of the crab

[Chris_Hughes]

Traditionally in the kitchen and in food preparation, a crabs lungs where called \"dead mans fingers\", probably for more than the reason that they look like fingers but are the parts that held bacteria etc., that could give you food poisoning. The same principle would apply to the green shore crab that we use for bait (we don\'t use edible crab for bait in Yorkshire, Co Durham and Northumberland do we !). Anyway, once a crab is dead, the lungs deteriorate very rapidly and may taint the rest of the meat. When I freeze crab, if they are very alive then they go into the freezer whole, but if they are about to pop then I shell them and remove the lungs. I can\'t say that one fishes better than the other.

On the subject of food poisoning, how many here realise that the summer favourite, mackerel is also quite poisonous when past it\'s best, which soon comes on a warm day inside a bucket or bin liner. Best out of the water and in the pan within an hour or so. Or you could try it as sushi, take a clean knife and some lemon with you next time, slice a bit of meat from the tail end before cleaning the fish. Not my thing, but the Japanese seem to like their raw fish.