CrabbyChris
Member
Tanner crab(I think) & Brown Box crab from Desolation sound prawn gear.
Crab bycatch while prawning
- Thread starter buccaneer
- Start date
Peahead
Well-Known Member
I believe you are correct. Tanner Crab alias "snow crab" . I got these two in the same soak mixed in with dungees .....been in same spot tons of times and just dungees and then one day I get these 2 Tanner. I believe the Deadliest Catch boys go for these same species at certain times
http://www.google.ca/search?q=tanne...wKXtoGYCA&sqi=2&ved=0CDYQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=747
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Great pictures guys!
Excited when people take an interest in Box Crabs. I did my thesis on them, specifically looking at reproduction and development. Box Crabs and Puget Sound King crabs are very closely related (same genus, kind of like coho vs chinook). They are a type of king crab. The king crabs (including red king crab, golden king crab, and various other critters that you would see in the intertidal around here) are a cool group. They do not share an ancestor that looks like a crab with the true crabs (like the dungeness) but actually evolved from hermit crabs. If you catch a female the abdomen (the flap underneath that you use to tell male from female dungeness) is rounded and asymmetrical in the females, this is left over from when they had a coiled abdomen to fit in snail shells. You should only keep males (Triangular abdomen with plates arranged symmetrically). ALso, the right claw is almost always bigger... same goes for Alaska King crab, Puget sound king crab etc..... The group of hermit crabs they evolved from all have a larger right claw too.
Box crabs have been investigated as a commercial species here and in Oregon, supposedly they are super tasty, I never had the heart to try one because I got to attached to them (ridiculous from a guy who has no second thoughts about hammering on dungeness). I found that they only reproduce once every two years. It is likely that they are really vulnerable to overfishing, partially for this reason. (for the paper hit the "get PDF" button at this link http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-7410.2011.00221.x/abstract ) The Puget sound king crab is supposedly way less numerous than it was historically, and this may just be from catch by divers.
I have caught male box up to 18 cm accross the carapace, which would be a great eater as they are more bulky than a dungeness. There are reports of much bigger ones, but this could be confusion with puget sounds which get huge. It is good that the limit is only 1 though, given that we dont know too much about them. If anyone is interested or has questions PM me. Below is a link to a site with some info..... also a great site with pics for other local species.
http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics...ily_Lithodidae/Lopholithodes_foraminatus.html
Where were you Bucanneer? Somewhere off the sunshine coast? They are definitely not everywhere.... my experience is that if there are enough that you are getting little guys in or on your prawn traps consistently, you will get them if you drop a crab trap. They are a fatter top to bottom, so to get big ones you may need to modify your gates depending on your trap design.
Excited when people take an interest in Box Crabs. I did my thesis on them, specifically looking at reproduction and development. Box Crabs and Puget Sound King crabs are very closely related (same genus, kind of like coho vs chinook). They are a type of king crab. The king crabs (including red king crab, golden king crab, and various other critters that you would see in the intertidal around here) are a cool group. They do not share an ancestor that looks like a crab with the true crabs (like the dungeness) but actually evolved from hermit crabs. If you catch a female the abdomen (the flap underneath that you use to tell male from female dungeness) is rounded and asymmetrical in the females, this is left over from when they had a coiled abdomen to fit in snail shells. You should only keep males (Triangular abdomen with plates arranged symmetrically). ALso, the right claw is almost always bigger... same goes for Alaska King crab, Puget sound king crab etc..... The group of hermit crabs they evolved from all have a larger right claw too.
Box crabs have been investigated as a commercial species here and in Oregon, supposedly they are super tasty, I never had the heart to try one because I got to attached to them (ridiculous from a guy who has no second thoughts about hammering on dungeness). I found that they only reproduce once every two years. It is likely that they are really vulnerable to overfishing, partially for this reason. (for the paper hit the "get PDF" button at this link http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-7410.2011.00221.x/abstract ) The Puget sound king crab is supposedly way less numerous than it was historically, and this may just be from catch by divers.
I have caught male box up to 18 cm accross the carapace, which would be a great eater as they are more bulky than a dungeness. There are reports of much bigger ones, but this could be confusion with puget sounds which get huge. It is good that the limit is only 1 though, given that we dont know too much about them. If anyone is interested or has questions PM me. Below is a link to a site with some info..... also a great site with pics for other local species.
http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics...ily_Lithodidae/Lopholithodes_foraminatus.html
Where were you Bucanneer? Somewhere off the sunshine coast? They are definitely not everywhere.... my experience is that if there are enough that you are getting little guys in or on your prawn traps consistently, you will get them if you drop a crab trap. They are a fatter top to bottom, so to get big ones you may need to modify your gates depending on your trap design.
ive6 eaten a lot of large box crab over the years mostly from shallow water caught by divers, or at low tide inside ogden point breakwater,sweet and tasty meat one i boiled up up was well over 25lbsmost are purplish when fresh caught then red after
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