Yabby Catcher!?

[Croft]

Any ideas for a home made Yabbie net/cage/box etc? I want to catch some yabbies for bait and for my pet fish (maybe even my dinner if they are big enough). I was wondering if anyone knows a good way to catch them, that doesn't require me purchasing an opera net etc.?

[jewgaffer]

Hi Croft, are you are talking about trapping freshwater crayfish, yabbies or salt water nippers?

Cheers

jewgaffer

[outdoordan]

If your talking about fresh water Yabbies... Easy

Opera house traps are cheap as chips and well worth the money, If not get a paint tin, knock some holes in the bottom with a screwdriver to let the water drain. Put a rock in it to weight it down. Then cover the top with chicken wire, making a funnel shape in the center about 50mm round. Punch two holes though the center of the tin and feed a coat hanger through, this is used to suspend the bait... Piece of piss

As for bait, yeah you can use a bit of steak or something, But the best baits i've used are Sunlight soap and Lettuce ... Seriously

Good luck

[brickman]

arrr yabby hunting a bush past time that i enjoyed up the hunter as dan said sunlight soap[white] is the killer bait for traps for yabbys and shrimp

if you can get the ok from farmer joe to a good dam or even a crappy one this is how we used to spend the arvos yabbying and drinking beer

gather 5 to 10 sticks about 2 feet long tye 6 feet off fishing line to each

use liver or kiddney as bait and tye a strip about 10mm x50mm to the end off the line

spred you sticks about 3 meters apart around the dam lob out your bait but leave some slack in the line

the slack is important

you need a prawning net to

have a beer and watch the lines when they go tight a yabby is trying to steal the bait this is were the fun starts

you have to very slowly pull the line in and then before you see the buggers whack the net behind the yabby

as soon as he sees you he will let go and swim backwards into deeper water and straight into the net

it takes a little while to master this but is great fun

if your going solo 5 lines is plenty and you will be kept fairly active

i used to go with a mate we used 10 lines and could fill a bucket in 2 to 3 hours for a good feed and a curry for ron

very important to get the farmers ok offer him half the catch and you will be wellcome back

have fun and let us know how you go

cherrs gary

[scotty d]

i use to do this as well and we would put our baits, usally any meat we had , and put them in a pair of stockings, found the yabbies seemed to get caught on the stockings and you could just grab them or more reliable like brickman said put a net behind them

[Squizy]

Wow

This thread takes me back to when I was a wee lad living on the banks of the Murray R.

For Shrimp as previously mentioned Sunlight soap is the key; however, we use to throw a bunch of gum leaves in the mix. It never failed.

For the humble Yabby, Carp... yes that is right Bloody old Carp. The yabby just can’t get enough. Opera house nets, drop nets or drum nets it doesn’t make much difference.

And boiled up in a big old copper on the river bank with a handful of salt all washed down with an ice cold beer. It doesn’t get any better than that.

[achjimmy]

Gotta watch using the traps nowadays as some councils have banned them (Blue Mountains Council for one) They have found instances of small platypus getting caught and drowning in unattended traps.

[Jono Hammond]

Had one of the green fishing shop traps and it worked a treat, lost it a while back though