By Sandy Huff
How to catch and fish fiddler crabs for a variety of inshore species.
Remember chasing fiddler crabs when you were a kid? Fiddlers are probably my all-around best bait, especially if kids are along. Catching the crabs can involve action, yelps of joy, lots of bending over, and a great lesson in biology. They’re also an irresistible bait for hungry fish.
Finding a fiddler colony is pretty easy. Fiddlers love company, where the males can use that big claw to spar and wave at the ladies. Scientists have counted up to 30 separate motions in each wave. When the tide comes back in, the males drum underwater, thumping around with their tiny feeder claws and feet.
Look for beaches or mudflats with lots of finger-thick holes going down to sea level. There will probably be some individuals scuttling across the ground.
There are a couple of ways to catch these little side-steppers. First is the time-honored method of digging them up, one by one. This is agonizingly slow, as the crab usually gets scooped up in your first handful of sand and thrown aside. It is, however, a great way to keep antsy kids occupied.
The next method, running them down, can be frustrating. About the time you’re about to nab a crab, it disappears down a hole.
Tommy Thompson, who writes the “Sportsman’s Kitchen” column for this magazine does indeed run them down. “Run around them in a circle,” he said. “They’ll pile up in the middle, and you can just scoop them up with your hands.” But as I get older, wiser, and creakier, there is the super…
