Peeler question???

[steol5589]

Was out tryin for peelers tonite when I found about 3 females with what look like a sack of eggs under their belly.they were yellow/orange in colour.can anyone confirm this for me.also does this mean I've missed the peel.

[donal domeney]

Depending on your location crab will be peeling from now until October.
The crab you picked should be put back in a safe place their eggs are next year’s peelers.

The best time for a good pick is around the spring tides.

The best thing to do is set traps.

Get a large flat stone and place a smaller stone under one side of it so that the larger stone has enough room for a crab to crawl under.

[tight lines]

the most common way of telling a peeler is to break the last section of the back leg and if there is a new soft skin growing under the top shell then it a peeler but as you get more used to picking them you will get to no the coulour of the peelers

when a crab is in the peeling prosess they go a lot lighter in coulour underneth more of a light yellow or cream coulour but the hard backs tend to be more of a greenish coulour some peelers when picked might not be fully ready to go if you find this just keep in a bucket or container in the fridge and give them a spray of sea water every day until the shell starts to split at the back legs when this happens they should be used a bait with in a day or so or peeled and frozen down to be used at a later date anothe way of telling a peeler is to get your tumb and fore finger and press gently at the top shell and underneth of the crab near the back legs if it cracks easy then it a peeler and ready to go

hope this helps a bit and you find some good crab

ALAN

[Rampent Wreckfish]

Was out tryin for peelers tonite when I found about 3 females with what look like a sack of eggs under their belly.they were yellow/orange in colour.can anyone confirm this for me.also does this mean I've missed the peel.

They are parasites you saw not eggs.

[SlackLiner]

Was out tryin for peelers tonite when I found about 3 females with what look like a sack of eggs under their belly.they were yellow/orange in colour.can anyone confirm this for me.also does this mean I've missed the peel.

They are parasites you saw not eggs.

mhhh they are quite similar and easily mistaken tbh. The Sacculina carcini parasite is a slightly smaller, smoother sack under the abdominal shield whilst the eggs are often a much larger and more uniform mass. If it is S. carcini then these crabs can no longer moult at all (due to some rather neat host-parasite interactions!) but if its just eggs then they may moult again but not in the near future. So yeah you've missed the moult on those berried ones I recon but there will still be a few crabs which haven't started yet