It could be that the crabs are so few on the ground that when the pros find a productive spot they really target that spot to make a living.

They always slow down this time of year.

Unless you know the secrets spots

There are some real issues with Cockburn crabs which will be a worry to the community.

AS you may have heard last year there was concern about moulting and age group/year class sequencing eg crabs weren’t moulting at the normal timing/age. We had a lot of small crabs not making size as expected for the 2nd year class

There will be more information available soon but as people have reported very few crabs have been caught by rec’s in both the Swan River and Cockburn sound compared to 2010 when the fishery was re-opened.

Some of the reasons for poor stock levels suggested have been water temps and salinity during spawning periods and environmental issues with the greater Cockburn industrial area.

I would also personal question impacts of the continuing dredging of Success Bank and other areas causing loss of habitat, gold rush type activities of commercials (the trap densities in Cockburn sound is higher than the Shark Bay- Australia’s largest blue crab fishery) and lack of support or enthusiasm by commercials to move to a co-managed fishery model. There is a real issue with competition between commercial operators and lack of trust with management strategies

Historically Cockburn was a predominantly recreational fishery taking a large proportion of the crabs until the rapid development of several commercial fisheries in the late 1980’s and 90’s

No surprises the fishery collapsed not long after.

”Environmental conditions resulting in poor recruitment and combined with fishing pressure resulted in declining catches from the late 90s to mid 2000s (Fletcher and  Santoro, 2009)"

Rest assure there are eyes on this issue but don’t be surprised if we see another closure until there are some stronger returns from the annual stock assessments.

Could we be systematicly reducing the overall size of crabs by selectively taking all the large ones?

The constant fishing pressure, where pros and recs strive to get the biggest crabs could be leaving only the "dwarfs" of the population to breed.

Just thinking, over many generations the average size of a crab may start to decline.

 Possibly. 

If you Google Cockburn crabs should come up with a couple of recent papers from FRDC on co-management and another discussing selective harvesting male only mud crabs. Others there on blue swimmer crabs, I would post links but I'm on a mobile. 

One be think for certain is rec catch data for any blue swimmer crab fisheries around the state is quiet poor.

the community may have to consider the merits of a crab licence and participation in helping gather that catch and biological information required for improved management strategies. It should all be about achieving an balanced and equitable resource.

the blue swimmer crab is the single most important species to rec anglers. 

I would happily buy a crab licence if it meant that the pros were bought out from Cockburn sound and it was returned to a rec only fishery!!!

Is it only me or does it seem like whenever a crab fishery here in WA overfishes and crashes the fishery all of the research discovers that it is everything else but the commercial take. People say we have had a couple of good seasons in the past couple of years, however I would say that they were very aveage seasons.

Most will measure a good day on whether they bagged out or not! In the past the bag limit was 40 and now it is 20, even in the last couple of "good" years it has taken the same amount of time to catch 20 crabs as it used to, to get 40... No rocket scientist mathmatics needed to work out something is not quite right in the metro crab fishery...

If a crab license gives us more rights to the fishery, then I say bring it on and the sooner the better. Then give us back our bag limit of 40. (it is a lot of crabs, but hey, the good things in life should always be shared)

there are several factors at play as salmo has pointed out ,

each fishery is slightly different with some local factors having an affect, environmental being very high on the list state wide as well as catch effort , and the damage of undersize blue swimmer bycatch in commercial pots still needs looking at as well across the fishery

I cant speak about Cockburn as I don't fish it ,

but places like Busselton certainly have had huge increases in the recreational effort in the last 2 decades,

bunbury is very variable , having a commercial licence bought out, then allowing him to fish outside the cut , collecting catch before it enters the estuary defies the logic of the buy out , and still affects the inward movement of crab numbers into the estuary and port area in a large way going on his catch records

the bag limit at 20 is enough for a boat max
we don't need another licence , the RFBL covers this already , enough money is generated from licences now to do the job at present imho

crabs are an important rec fishery , however bread and butter fish are imo the most important , herring no 1 ,

thought needs to be applied very carefully before recreational fishers just accept any new restrictions, management options on our fisherys

hezzy

Your right on the money Hezzy, I don't know who said it but there is an old saying "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" this also very relevant as far as fishing regs go also. If they are backed by solid science then you can not argue with them,IMO however if they are based on what is thought to be going on, then it is your responsibility to argue against unsound restrictions