How To Rig Blue Crabs For Jetty Fishing
- By: Wyatt Parcel
- on February 18, 2022
What is the RIGHT way to rig crabs for jetty fishing?
Is there specific tackle you need to be successful out on the jetties?
If you want to find more success when fishing off the jetties, then check this out!!
Learn more below!
Rig Crabs For Jetty Fishing
Blue crabs are one of the best types of bait to use when fishing off the jetties during the winter.
The first step to preparing the crab as bait is to cut off the legs and flippers on both sides of the crab.
Be careful not to cut the bottom flipper too short because this will help when we go to hook the bait.
Next, you want to halve the shell by cutting right across the top of the shell.
Make sure to take your time and be gentle when cutting the crab because if you are too forceful, you risk cracking the shell.
The bait will not rig properly if it is not cut correctly.
Once you make your way around the crab, you will end up with two halves.
You can rig either half on a hook, however, you will get more out of the crab by quartering it.
Either way, you want to use an Octopus Circle hook to rig up these crab baits.
In order to rig the crab on a circle hook, insert the hook point into the back flipper of the crab and feed it out through the back.
You want to make sure the hook is all the way through the shell and exposed so if a fish eats the bait, it will be hooked.
For the quartered pieces that do not have a flipper point, you can insert the hook through the bottom of the crab and then out through the top.
You want to make sure the hook point is exposed and facing up on all of your baits.
Click HERE to check out Gamakatsu Octopus Circle Hooks
Rig Crabs For Jetty Fishing [VIDEO]
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Conclusion
Jetty fishing during the winter can produce results if you use crab as bait and be patient for a bite to spark up.
Blue crabs are an excellent bait to use off the jetties for redfish, black drum, or even sheepshead.
Be sure to have your hook points exposed and facing up to avoid snags and increase your hookup ratio!!
Do you have any more questions on the right way to rig crabs for jetty fishing?
Let me know down in the comments!
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This will be useful for some time in the future so I put it in the back of my mind about fishing with crabs and how to cut them and put them on hooks.
Just a couple of comments. First of all, that was a female crab (you can see by the shape of the “apron” and by the mass of orange eggs inside the crab), and those who are very conservation oriented do not kill female crabs that are the source of new crabs for the crab populations. Plus, as a simply fishing comment, why not, as long as you have big scissors, trim off the big spine on the horizontal side of the shell/carapice to make the bait more easily taken in by a fish???
Hey Randy! Unfortunately females were all that were available at the bait stand, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Being that they were already dead, I wanted to at least get some use out of them.
As for the big spine, I do trim it before sending it out most times, but it’s not necessarily a huge game changer. Because the current was so heavy in the area I was fishing, I tried to limit comprimising the carapace any further to allow current to blow the meat out.
Maybe if these guys would have paid attention to you… you said “Fresh/dead bait”! It’s not like you purposely hunt down female crabs for bait! Sheesh man these tree huggers!
It’s a fair enough concern, so I understand their comments on it… even my mom messaged me saying she was upset I used a female crab haha! I was disappointed myself to see that they were at the bait stand, but once they’re dead there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. I’d planned to film this tip a few weeks in advance, and I couldn’t call it off due to the one place having crabs (and I checked a few) only carrying females…
That being said, you won’t see me using them again in a video!
Next time, make sure you don’t use a female. Males have the rocket on the belly
Hey Joe, unfortunately females were all that were available at the bait stand… since they were already dead, I figured it didn’t make much of a difference at that point. If I had caught these myself, I surely would have put the females back… even when chicken necking for them, I only keep males!
Don’t sweat it. It wasn’t berries. That female crab was legal. Don’t let these can’t do anything wrong people browbeat you.