Swan River Crab
Submitted by Belly88 on Wed, 2012-02-08 21:07
Hey Guys and Girls, First time poster, long time reader.
I caught this crab yesterday while crabbing around Blackwall, 13m of water.
As far as i can tell its a Coral Crab (Charybdis cruciata)
Am i right? Has anyone else caught one of these??
Image Upload:
Swan River Fisher
Posts: 877
Date Joined: 03/05/11
Wow, almost looks like its
Wow, almost looks like its been cooked already.
Definetly not a blue swimmer!
Cant help with the ID sorry!
Belly88
Posts: 380
Date Joined: 08/02/12
Oh and i forgot to say the
Oh and i forgot to say the size.. Its was fairly big...about 15mm over size..
synthos
Posts: 522
Date Joined: 23/06/07
WTF
OK I am stopping crabbing if blues become red the water quality has to be crap :)
chris raff
Posts: 3257
Date Joined: 09/02/10
Looks to be a coral crab
never caught one in the swanny though myself...be more at home around rotto I would've thought...how'd you go with the blueys, did you get many
“Intelligence is like a four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.”
Belly88
Posts: 380
Date Joined: 08/02/12
We got 16 in 6 hours from 6am
We got 16 in 6 hours from 6am till 12noon half at blackwall half at mozzies.. Was really slow going compaired to a week ago there was a few boats around, we were doing the best out of the ones we talked to..
Crabs were really good size and nice and full so 16 was plenty enough for a feed.
Redfin Wrangler
Posts: 144
Date Joined: 21/01/12
How long?
How long you soak yor nets for before you pull them up?
"No life is so happy and so pleasant as the life of the well-govern'd angler."
Belly88
Posts: 380
Date Joined: 08/02/12
Soaking
Mate we dont really have a set soaking time. Sometime we start pulling agian straight away after the last in the line is pulled, sometimes we wait up to half an hour.
Didnt seem to matter the other day they were mostly empty how ever long we left them.
Glenn Moore
Posts: 228
Date Joined: 13/02/12
crucifix crab
Crabs are well outside my area of knowledge, but I asked our Curator of Crustacea, Andrew Hosie. He said it is a Crucifix Crab Charybdis feriata.
The Museum has records of this crab from the Swan River dating back to 1923 and has been found upriver as far as Applecross. Charybdis feriata is a tropical species found in the Indo-Pacific region and Cockburn Sound appears to be the southernmost limit for this species in WA. This species is not especially common in Australia, but does form a substantial fishery in Asia and is apparently more highly valued than related swimming crabs such as the blue swimmers.
Nice looking crab Belly, did you eat it?
In fact he recently wrote a blog about this species for the Museum webpage:
http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/explore/blogs/#museummarine%2Fcreature-feature-holy-crab-crucifix-crab-charybdis-feriatus-linneaus-1758
Glenn Moore
Curator of Fishes
Western Australian Museum
twitter @WestOzFish
soupster51
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Date Joined: 29/11/06
Info
Top information Glenn. Good to have you on board.
The best reason for doing what's right today is tomorrow.
snappermiles
Posts: 2100
Date Joined: 05/11/10
weird looking thing
did you forward the picture to the fisheries??
ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS EXCEPT YOU AND ME! AND IM NOT SO SURE ABOUT YOU!
Faulkner Family
Posts: 17871
Date Joined: 11/03/08
never seen one like that
never seen one like that before. looks like the claws are full.just goes to show, you never know what will turn up in our rivers
RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together
GlennO87
Posts: 182
Date Joined: 29/01/11
that looks amazing....
that looks amazing....
I love fishing. It`s escaping reality for a few hours for me!
Belly88
Posts: 380
Date Joined: 08/02/12
crab
I forwarded the photo onto Glenn as it seemed know one really knew what it was.
This Crab was a berried female so i returned her after a quick photo.
Thanks so much Glenn, that infomation was really good....another bit of info in the brain.. :-)
Belly