Catching Yabbies in the Murray River

We have had some wild weather in these parts over the last 6 months.  Power outages, fallen trees and storm damage have been a regular occurrence but, as with most things, there is also a silver lining somewhere to be found amongst the misfortune.  In this case, the rainfall has been very good throughout the south eastern parts of Australia in the second half of 2016 resulting in water catchment dams and reservoirs now being full or near full and water flows through the river systems are strong.  Good water flows in the rivers means that Australia's freshwater crustacean, the Yabby, comes out in large numbers.  The Yabby is somewhat like the North American Crawfish.  They look just like a miniature lobster but are in actual fact about the size of an average ocean prawn.



Australian 'Yabby'

With word of yabbies being 'on the bite' we decided to head to the sleepy little town of Kingston-on-Murray (on the Murray River) to try our luck.  So it was early in the morning of what was forecast to be a hot 35°C Sunday that we set off with our four 'Opera House' yabby traps (they look a little like the Sydney Opera House when opened up), and some old roast chicken carcasses to use as bait.

We drove to Kingston on Murray to drop some Yabby traps into the river

A quick 200 km drive up the highway from Adelaide towards the South Australian Riverland and we were at our destination just before 10am with traps in the water shortly thereafter.  You are legally entitled to have 3 nets each in the water at any one time so with two traps each we kept everything legal!

While we waited for the yabbies to 'sniff out' the bait, Heather did some metal detecting along the river bank and I went and bought a Sunday newspaper to read under a nice shady tree.

About an hour and a half later, Heather returned with a 1950 Kangaroo Penny that she had detected below the ground at the base of a big old River Red Gum tree.

A 1950 Kangaroo Penny (this is not the actual coin Heather found but is an image I got from Google)

After cleaning the coin a bit, we decided to check our yabby traps/pots.  When we first started pulling on their ropes, they were heavy and we started to get all excited!  Unfortunately the weight was due to what must have been nearly 100 small (5 - 10cm bait fish size) European Carp that had swarmed into each trap to try some chicken.  This fish is yet another sorry example of a species introduced to Australia that has run-amok and is now choking out the native river fish species.  Adding insult to injury is the fact that they do not make for good eating so why were they introduced in the first place?  Anyway, due to carp being an officially designated pest it is illegal to return them live to the water so we tipped the contents of our pots onto the bank of the river and let the sun do the rest - that was our good environmental deed for the week.

Luckily, amongst the mass of bait fish was a yabby or two per pot, so we picked them out and put them in our collection bucket then dropped the empty pots with their remaining bait back into the water for another hour.  We repeated this cycle a couple more times, complete with the carp culling, before calling it a day and returning home.

A couple more than a dozen Yabbies to take home for dinner!

Not sure who looks more worried - The Yabby or Heather?

Grant alongside the river with a couple of Yabbies pulled from a trap

Remember that if you click on a photo it should enlarge a bit for you - it will make the yabbies look bigger too!

In all we brought home 14 yabbies which is enough to know whether we have a taste for them or not.  If we like them we sure know where to go to get some more.  Next time we might even take the caravan and make a full weekend of it rather than a 400 km day trip!

That's all for now.
Stay safe and stay tuned for the next edition of WTF? - Where are The Farrows?

Raking for Blue Swimmer Crabs

The weather report for the upcoming weekend was good.  The moon was new and the tide times were favourable.  All systems GO!  I rushed home from work on a fine Friday afternoon, dropped and swapped the business pants and shirt and got into my best camping attire - good old flannel shirt and multi-pocketed cargo pants.  A half hour later we had the caravan hitched up and we hit the road for the short 70 km journey to Port Parham just north of Adelaide to catch some of the local in season delicacy - Blue Swimmer Crabs!

Port Parham is a well known crabbing location that just happens to have a free caravan and camping site right on the beach - perfect!  The only catch (no pun intended) is that it is a first come, first served location - no reservations.  It must have been meant to be as we were lucky enough to secure the last open site with a couple more disappointed campers arriving just a minute after we pulled up.  Once we got set up it was not long before we were seated in our outdoor chairs enjoying a relaxing beverage to watch the sun going down.  It was a bit breezy but at least the wind kept the flies away!

You can launch a boat and drop a few baited crab pots into the water and wait, or, as was the case for us, you can go 'raking for crabs'.  Simply wait until just before full low tide and start the long walk (probably 1km or more) with a crab rake in one hand and towing a storage tub tethered around your waist with a couple of metres of rope behind you until you reach the sea grass interspersed with a sandy bottom in knee deep water.

Heather with rake, tub and tether rope.  All ready to go crabbing!

All 'zinced up' for protection from the reflected sun and making the trek out into the shallows .  Note that even in the distance there is no water in site!

The crabs bury themselves in the sand at the edge of the sea grass so that is where you start raking.  If and when your rake makes contact with a buried crab they will respond by lashing out at it with their nippers.  They will typically latch onto it which you not only feel but you can also hear - it makes a 'tink, tink, tink' sound as they strike out and nip at the metal.  It also helps when the weather is calm as it was while we were out there.  With no wind the water does not have too many ripples - amazing what a difference it makes when you can see what you are doing!  Anyway, when the crab strikes you flip the head of the rake over while he is still hanging onto it (imagine you are twirling a lacrosse stick).  The only thing left to do is turn and shake him off into the tub you have been towing - if the tether rope is still attached then the tub should be floating behind you!

Below is a photo of a crab amongst the sea grass waving his nippers menacingly at the rake (nice underwater photo courtesy of my GoPro camera).

Act of defiance from this Blue Swimmer Crab

The beautiful blue colouration of these crabs is how they got their name.

All that is left to do after the 'lacrosse twirl and shake' into the tub is to check and measure them to ensure they are legal.

This legal sized male crab was a keeper.

The crabs you catch need to be of a certain minimum size and regardless of size, all females with eggs must be returned to the water.  We each had a sizing gauge in our tubs to make sure anything undersized was released.  The guy in the photo above was a keeper!

Once we got back to camp it was time to put the crabs to sleep by placing them in ice water for a couple of hours.  Once dormant, you cook them up in some boiling salt water.  Rather than describe the whole process here in the blog, I recommend you watch the short video that Heather made where we do the whole 'how to catch and cook blue swimmer crabs' thing.  Click on the link below to watch our weekend unfold!  It has some pretty good underwater video of tour weekend - the GoPro is great for this kind of thing.  It is a regular documentary if I do say so myself!

It was sunny and calm but not hot, yet even though we suited up, wore hats and smeared on the zinc cream to protect ourselves, we still ended getting pretty burned as a result of the sun reflecting off of the water.  Despite this we really enjoyed our quick weekend getaway.

That's all for this installment of WTF? - Where are The Farrows?  Be sure to follow the link below to watch the video on YouTube - it really is a good one...would I lie to you?

https://youtu.be/ET-0CDbTFxc