Dealing with Mitten Crabs on the Tidal Trent

[Steve J Williams]

I've just come back from a 2 day trip to the Tidal Trent and the Mitten crabs were a real pain this time.

In my experience they specialise in either snipping your hooklength off, cutting through the hair or robbing your bait. By far the most commom problem (for me) was them cutting the hooklength, usually just below the anti tangle sleeve (thats 3ft from the hook ! ). I'm using 15lb mono hooklengths.

I'm thinking of switching to a coated braid for the hooklength and wondered if anyone has any experience of fishing the tidal Trent and coping with the Mitten crab problem. I'd appreciate any tips for products and tactics to minimise the impact of these things.

 

[Alex Fowers]

Iv not fished the tidal Trent myself so iv no experience in dealing with mitten crabs, but a non fish meal bait might be worth a go. Coated braid hooklinks should stop the cut offs

 

[Jon Frisby]

The sad thing here, is all those hooklengths with a baited hook on, getting eaten by Barbel...
Do you fish a popular area, thats baited and fished quite regularly? If yes, then your answer is in front of you or not in front of you.

 

[Steve J Williams]

The sad thing here, is all those hooklengths with a baited hook on, getting eaten by Barbel...
Do you fish a popular area, thats baited and fished quite regularly? If yes, then your answer is in front of you or not in front of you.

Its not a particulary popular area, we do put bait out (mostly hemp and pellet) and its a big river so whatever we put out is a dusting of food on the river bed. Baits we are using are 14mm pellets, if the crabs haven't eaten them (which i'm sure they have) the pellets are broken down in approx 90 mins, 2 hours tops. I appreciate there is a small risk of a fish picking up a baited hook tho, hence my question

 

[Jon Frisby]

I probably jumped a little too quick there... they are everywhere, even more so on areas that are heavily fished. They don't come in ones and 2s either. 5 years ago they were a few above Dunham bridge and they weren't such a problem. There is a lot around Gainsborough and they can be a problem in most pegs. September and October are generally bad as they migrate on the big spring tides. Luckily they are migratory so they do dissipate aswell....

 

[Ben Marr]

Braid hooklengths ae fairly effective against Spider Crabs when Sea fishing, who perform the same snipping trick, so should help against the Mittens.

 

[Ray Heath]

If you look on fb real river Trent Ian Potts recommends the vortex bpt ( banana pineapple and turmeric) range as he says craps don’t touch them as they are not meat or fish based
I use a non fish based boilies on one rod and crabs never bothered me but neither did the barbel and other rod I use a 14 mm pellet and don’t get bothered to much
I believe if you keep freebies to a minimum then you have less crabs

 

[Connor Smith]

I've just come back from a 2 day trip to the Tidal Trent and the Mitten crabs were a real pain this time.

In my experience they specialise in either snipping your hooklength off, cutting through the hair or robbing your bait. By far the most commom problem (for me) was them cutting the hooklength, usually just below the anti tangle sleeve (thats 3ft from the hook ! ). I'm using 15lb mono hooklengths.

I'm thinking of switching to a coated braid for the hooklength and wondered if anyone has any experience of fishing the tidal Trent and coping with the Mitten crab problem. I'd appreciate any tips for products and tactics to minimise the impact of these things.

Hi Steve, I make some videos for YouTube and I've just come back off 2 days on collingham, I was using some homemade fishmeal hookbaits and whilst the crabs did have a go they couldn't get through to them due to the amount of milk proteins I put in them which naturally hardens them. I also fished a coated braid hooklink and a bait screw and they just couldn't get the bait off. My video should be out by Wednesday hopefully, where I explain and show everything I did , might help you out next time. Search for "the barbel project"

 

[Steve Foran]

Cko

 

[Dave Bartell]

Cko

New PB Steve ?

 

[Steve Foran]

Yes mate

 

[Ian Woods]

Cko

You make a lovely looking couple Ste .