Crabs not that meaty!

[Hagar]

Lately the crabs I’ve been getting don’t have a lot of meat in them, especially the legs. Is it the time of year, has anyone else noticed this? Crabbing in Sidney.

 

[RBL]

Yeah you can tell when the shell is soft and white. Not worth keeping soft IMO

 

[Aces]

They are molting. Wait a few weeks

 

[Rockfish]

Squeeze the wide part of a leg being careful not to get pinched by the claws. With a little experience you will be able to tell a soft shell from a med. hard shell and from a hard shell. They get harder over time after they molt. They can lose about 50% of the meat in the molting process but gain it back as the shell hardens overtime. So the harder the shell, the better.

 

[Hagar]

How long do they molt for it must be for a couple of months the time before this was similar.

 

[scott craven]

They molt all year long South Island.
the commercial guys are pretty good at weeding out all
the decent hard shells.

 

[eroyd]

Throw them back when they are soft. 5 dressed up as a 7.

 

[Hagar]

I’ll keep trying maybe be more selective next time.

 

[wolf]

Like others said crabs will molt year round no special time when they do , when I commercial crabbed we would even get some where you could almost see thru them.. that soft , by look you will see the colors are very light and they will be soft to touch grab the back leg and near the body squeeze if its soft toss back you will catch it again anyways if you put your traps right back down again IMO.

 

[Howzer]

Yeah, they buy new clothes a couple times a year and grow into them.
Sorta like me around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

[Hagar]

Thanks everyone for the info. I kind of figured that that was the issue last time, as I had a female loaded with eggs that I carefully put back, as that was at least a month ago. I didn’t realize that it was a year long thing.

 

[Tips Up]

Halibut like to eat the molting crabs.