I've posted some tips in your other thread about finding crays. I think you'll find that most people won't be willing to give you exact details of their best cray spots...unfortunately for you I am the same in this respect! You'll need to put in the hard yards and find some of your own spots, I'll send you a PM tomorrow about general spots to start looking. You need to understand that not being a SCUBA diver, you are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to finding and extracting crays - however if you are persistent you will get one. Good on you for showing an interest in cray hunting.
Thanks for the info. I have seen a few people get crays around the Portland area. Just wondering how deep you go to spear your fish and collect crays. I saw on another topic the pictures of your fish from Lorne I think it was and made me wonder how deep you get these fish (leatherjackets, sweep etc.).
I get all my fish and most of my crays from land-based locations, so I'm generally in 1-4m of water for the fish, and 3-6m for the crays. The leatherjackets and sweep in those photos were taken in about 2m of water.
Do you ever chase larger fish? eg. Kingies, snapper, mulloway etc.
I saw a few kids spearfishing at Portland recently and they speared a smallish king just around the breakwater. They only had a small gun (about 50cm) which had a cluster head. The king would have been about 10-20 pounds. Fair effort I thought!
I was told that crays can often be found by baiting them out. Does this work? What about crays that walk at nighttime?
08-04-2005, 06:52 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2005, 06:53 PM by Jazman.)
I don't specifically target bigger fish, I have speared a few small snapper (approx 1kg), but compared to further west or north, Victoria doesn't have much in the way of big fish opportunities. When I am SCUBA diving for crays, sometimes if I find one that is deep in it's cave, I will cut up an abalone and wave it near the entrance to the cave, they almost always come out, but sometimes they take a while. If you're patient, and stay VERY still, you can get them to come out and sit on your hand using this method. Difficult on snorkel though, you'd have to somehow anchor the bait to the bottom and watch it from the top, then dive when the cray comes out. It could work.
I saw some kids over in S.A dangling pilchards in the water just on a rock breakwater. Quite afew crays were sticking their heads out and the kids would grab them. This was in the middle of the day! I was told that in Vic most of the crays walk at night. Is this true?
Yeah I think that most crays walk at night in Vic. But very occasionally you will find them out in the open during the day (like the one my mate got late last year that was sitting on top of the reef totally exposed)
Crays are definately hard to find during the day, but that's what it's all about! I've spoken to a lot of guys who go diving for crays for the first time, and wonder why they didn't see any. A quick chat usually reveals that they've just been swimming along the surface expecting to see crays in easy to reach spots. 99% of crays are not visible from the surface, even in shallow water. You need to dive down and look under rocks, and under the kelp to find the ledges, that is where the crays will be. I've been diving at sunset a few times, and the crays were well hidden. Cray diving, expecially on snorkel, is hard work, so if you feel knackered after doing it, then you're probably doing it right! <img src='http://www.squidfish.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/xyxthumbs.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
These are the most recent crays I got SCUBA diving shore-based. This pic gives you a good idea of the sort of terrain you should be looking in - a rocky shoreline with deeper holes. I took one of those crays within 20m of where I'm standing, so don't worry if you're not game to swim out a long way.
I didn't weigh them, the smaller one would be <1kg, the bigger one between 1.5 and 2kg.
They tasted great, except the bigger one was about to moult (shed its shell), so it had a complete, very soft 'new' shell underneath the outer hard 'old' shell - when they're at this stage the flesh is also quite soft. When they shed the old shell, the new shell is still soft for a few days, and they are very vulnerable to predators, so they usually tend to hide out deep in caves until their shell hardens.
Thanks Glen. Both crays were taken from a reef. The larger cray was sitting in the mouth of a fairly deep ledge, so I had to grab him 'first time', the smaller one was in a shallow cave-complex, and had nowhere to go when I arrived. The larger crays will usually position themselves near to an escape route of some description. Both were taken in <3m of water.
08-05-2005, 03:02 PM (This post was last modified: 08-05-2005, 03:04 PM by AND1_HOTSAUCE.)
Hey Jaz
Where abouts were they taken? You said that they big crays usually have some escape route, How did you get your big one then? Ive only ever seen anout 3 or 4 crays and they always out run me into deep water! In the phot, were the crays taken about where the waves are breaking??
What I mean about the escape route is this - the crays will sometimes sit in a spot where you can reach them, and they will generally stay there until they are alarmed. But they are usually not far from somewhere inaccessible that they can get to quickly if they are threatened. The big cray that I got was sitting in the open end of a ledge that narrowed back a long way, I could see a lot of spots the cray could retreat to where I couldn't get hold of him. So I had to be careful not to alarm the cray, and grab him where he was.
When you say the crays run you into deep water - you mean they swim out in open away from cover? All the crays I've had escape me have done so into heavy cover or caves where usually all I can see are the feelers poking out behind a rock, well out of reach.
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