# Destin Blue crab report



## Ft.Walton_Angler

trying to kill some time until the flounder numbers improve so it's back to crabbing.

Unfortunately it's still slow. 4 hours with 9 pots around the destin bridge / harborwalk and only caught 3 (1 keeper)

We have been catching dozens in Tom's Bayou but just about all of them are under 5". We try to keep only 6" + crab.

Water temp is a little cooler than it was at this time in 2011. We were catching 20-30 keepers per hour at this time last year.

Gonna wait till the water temp hit's 85 and holds for a few days. All other conditions look great though. Plenty of fish carcasses stinking up the bottom from the charter boats, good water clarity, fairly gentle current. 

Anyone in P-cola having better luck with the crabs yet?


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## Hydro Therapy 2

Be careful you have to have a license to put out more than 5 traps.


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## Ft.Walton_Angler

Hydro Therapy 2 said:


> Be careful you have to have a license to put out more than 5 traps.


 
The wife and I both have licenses and our 2 boys don't require them yet. We're using less than 1/2 of the allowed number of traps, but we only keep a bucket full of crab per weekend. 9 traps is plenty to get a full bucket in 2 hours. 

That's a good point you bring up though. Some of the reg's changed this year, so if anyone is new to crabbing, you must have at least the free shoreline license if you are 16+ y/o. (5 traps per person max)


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## Hydro Therapy 2

I haven't crabbed in a few years but plan on it soon. Also you have to label your float with (REC) to show they are not commercial traps.


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## Ft.Walton_Angler

http://www.eregulations.com/florida/fishing/saltwater/blue-crab-regulations/

I hopped on the FWC site a second ago and the reg's are for Jan 1st - June 30th 2012. I thought they updated annnually not semi-annually. Do you know if the reg's usually make significant changes for the 2nd half of the year? I wonder if they do it this way to see what the species numbers are looking like so the can adjust bag limits accordingly.


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## scspecv22

I went to Destin yesterday to try some crabbing and only caught 1. It was a nice 6" male however, can't do much with just one crab so I ended up letting him go.


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## Hydro Therapy 2

scspecv22 said:


> I went to Destin yesterday to try some crabbing and only caught 1. It was a nice 6" male however, can't do much with just one crab so I ended up letting him go.


That seems to be what happends to me, I always find about 90% of what I catch is female so I always let them go and there's only one or two males that I would be interested in keeping out of the bunch. So I never seem to do to well. I like to net them at night when we flounder ,same results though.


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