Raking for Blue Swimmers in SA

[cruisecraft]

Hi Fishraiders,

We were doing a road trip to South Australia in March, just as the Big Wet was happening on the East Coast. I had always wanted to catch blue swimmers by raking, ever since I heard about it from a friend and with this SA trip planned, I factored it into our trip. Our base was a caravan park at Ardrossan, for 3 nights. By the time we got there, it was late afternoon, so we went down to the jetty to observe the locals, who were using traps with baits.

Next morning, after buying fish heads for bait from the local hardware store, we went down to the jetty for 2 hours. The results were poor, as it was mostly undersized sand crabs and only one legal blue swimmer. The pots were free to loan from the caravan park.

 

Later that day, at low tide, we waded out at Tiddy Widdy beach, just 1 km north of Ardrossan, in our gumboots with the loan gear for raking from the caravan park. The equipment was a black tub with a blue carapace measure for the blue swimmers and 2 garden rakes. These were also free to loan from the caravan park. Within 2 hours, we had plenty of blue swimmers and threw back the smaller legal ones. The limit is 20 blue swimmers per day per person and no requirement for a fishing licence in SA for recreational fishos. Raking was fun and easy and my wife had a great time too, as it was her first time crabbing. The crabs cling onto the prongs of the rake and by flipping the rake so the crab is topside, they usually stay on long enough to flick into the tub

 

                                                                                                                             

 

 

The caravan park provides an outdoor cooking area with free gas cooker and huge pot for the cooking of the crabs, so as to keep the cabins free of fish odour.

 

Fresh blue swimmers are delicious. Needless to say, we had crab for dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Luckily no gout 😁

 

 

 

Regards Kit

 

 

[Pickles]

Great report @cruisecraft, nothing better than a feed of crabs or prawns. Hope you’re getting better weather than here in NSW. Thanks for sharing.

[Blackfish]

Great report CC, fresh Blue Swimmers are my favourite and it certainly looks a fun way of getting them to.

Hope the rest of your trip goes equally well.

[cruisecraft]

50 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Great report @cruisecraft, nothing better than a feed of crabs or prawns. Hope you’re getting better weather than here in NSW. Thanks for sharing.

 

13 minutes ago, Blackfish said:

Great report CC, fresh Blue Swimmers are my favourite and it certainly looks a fun way of getting them to.

Hope the rest of your trip goes equally well.

Hi Pickles and Blackfish,

I live in Sydney, I was away for 3 weeks only, and since return , it has been wet. Weather in SA was great at that time.

Thanks for viewing and replying.

Regards Kit

[Yowie]

A great feed of swimmers, looks like a bit of fun in the collection process.

[Billmack]

Well done CC, Ardrossan jetty has a great community feel to it, people come from afar for a day trip, eskys open early. The red earth Cliff backdrop to the jetty is also worth seeing at sunup.

A couple of years ago, like you, I wanted to try the raking, and after a while the crabs are easy to detect in the sand, although I was lucky to get more off the jetty than raking. Raking ticked off the bucket list though.

Crab omelette, crab pizza, or just crab....and beer of course. Bugger the gout 🤣

Edited April 9, 2022 by Billmack

[Rebel]

You can't beat a feed of swimmers.

Great report and photos.

Well done.

[bessell1955]

My favourite, crabs.  They are the best!  I am envious of you, well done.  

[Isaac Ct]

Delicious feed of crabs mate, well done.

[dmck]

As a crow-eater with a holiday house 1 hour south of Ardrossan, I can assure you they make good snapper burley..... 🤣

... if only we were allowed to catch snapper.

Hope you got to see a bit more of Yorke Peninsula,  it IS a beautiful part of the world.

[noelm]

There is quite a few crabbers that wade the big sand/weed flats out the back of the caravan parks at Windang and get quite a few, you need to check the regulations in regards to legal gear, also near the Ski Park at Oak Flats there is reasonable numbers there too, but it's quite a bit deeper.

[jenno64]

Awesome report!

beats raking leaves🤪