How To Catch FIDDLER CRABS & Keep Them ALIVE For Several Months!

hello everyone and welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is Kevin and today we're going to go over a very easy way to catch fiddler crabs basically I'm going to head out to a popular flat here in the area the sun's out shining it's now March you know he still has our cold nights cold days so I wait for the sun to come up and obviously a lower tide but I'm going to go out there on the Fiddlers they should be out on this flat by now like I said with the warmer weather weather it is about to get up to I think close to 70 today so basically all I've got is my bucket that I'm going to put them in okay some gloves and then a bigger bucket where I'm going to keep sand and I've got a long sleeve top on here okay this is made by Vapor power they're awesome for cutting the sun down and also the gnats okay I've got long pants and then my boots so we'll get out there now and I'll walk you through the process good [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] okay so this general area is where I've seen them all crawling around the ground so I'll go away for a little bit I'll come back and see them when they're on top and grab two or three at a time then I'll start digging down underneath but also now that I know these holes are all active I'll bring my shovel now and just kind of dig and sometimes you'll find two or three right in the same hole because when they run they can't be as territorial as having one crab to each hole in the male waving their claw you know they're not going to do that that's when you're not around to attract a female they'll just run and get two or three in a hole maybe I've already found several in the hole because they're just trying to get down for that moment okay so let's watch here I'm just going to dig around all right let's just check here we got a ton of holes here's one halfway hanging out which means there's probably another one if you can look I can see them right there looks like a female actually but we'll see but we'll see since she's hanging out there might be another one right underneath so there it is yup that's why he's hanging out because another one was down there blocking it so there's two two birds with one stone right there perfect exactly what I was talking about I'm gonna actually I'm actually going to take some of this soil home too for this habitat that I'm going to build now here it stays cooler during the you know the spring and all in my garage and whatnot so I can probably keep several of these at my house you know probably several couple pints full um at my house that way if I want to go to a trip and it's last minute I have Fiddlers right there there you are buddy ow that one actually got me pretty good okay here's a nice male all right I can see legs right here so this should be a good one right here one or two probably two it is right there when you see legs that means they can't go down any further because there's one blocking it there's one right here female all right and then I can see the milk all sitting right there flipping that a little bit I'll grab him ice claw there he is he's a big guy big guy there all right China back just looking for legs if I can see legs there's usually two in there so I can still see the legs up top if I'm lucky enough there's usually two in that hole because the one underneath ain't letting them come down another female I can actually see the legs sticking out right there which means there's probably more than one in there let's find out on top of each other one two and another yep there's one right there thanks brother he'll do just fine all right so I'm just digging now that I found them where they're at I just go down a couple inches lift up there's a big male right there I mean and then look I'll just go through a hole next to it a couple inches if there's one there there we go there's another okay let's check all you go down is a couple inches you'll see the the legs come up there's another so it's as simple as that once you find them they're there okay so now that I got a point and a half maybe two pints full of Fiddlers check this out y'all it's about 30 minutes worth of work okay so now that I have all those I'm gonna grab some soil here put it in the bucket so I can make my little Sanctuary at home my 40 gallon tub so we'll get a little bit of the harder soil with shells in it it's got nutrients in it for them to eat I'll get some of the swampy water to put down the other end so they can go in and out of the water at their at their pleasure okay so we're just going to dig here for a little bit and then we'll uh I'll show you what's going to happen when we get back to the house with the Fiddlers and their new sanctuary [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you all right so just getting back to the house gonna take the goods out right here got tons of Fiddlers lined up in there a little bit of uh stuff for their habitat I'm just gonna walk it into the garage here I'll show you what I got set up I'm gonna get some brackish water to put in there you don't really want to put any fresh water or hose water it'll actually kill them so um all right I'll let you know how it turns out all right so I got a couple Stones down they'll go into that this is still moist I have to get some of the water I'll probably prop this up a little bit so they have water to drink down there or I'll put it in the food bowls like I said the water containers there um and then we'll go from here I actually have fish flakes too um tropical fish that I still have inside fish flake food will work perfect for their food along with the nutrients that comes right out of this uh this here mud that I just took from their habitat you can see I was just digging mud and I got still got some Fiddlers in the mud itself okay and then I've got these couple pints full right now I'm going to let go right now so let's see what happens we get those guys in there okay there's a couple hundred right there um and like I said I'll work on this it'll be a work in progress here on what I'm going to do for the for the next steps for them to see if they'll survive I'm sure they'll start barreling and whatnot so that'll be cool as well all right there you have it they're all over right now but they'll settle down here I'll probably even put some type of cover over so they get some shade and it keeps it nice and moist got some big boys right there you got some females so it's cool I'm not looking to breed them or anything but when I want to go out for sheep's head or something I can just pull right from here when it gets too hot during the summer like I said I won't have this set up this is just a probably two month thing or something like that three months gonna try and get on some sheep's head okay I hope you enjoyed the video feel free to spread it on your friends easy peasy to pick up some Fiddlers you just got to know where to go and what time um you know not really what time of year but the temperature because the sun's got to be out they'll be all over to Flat follow them to their holes start digging easy one two three okay so it's been about a little over three weeks almost a month now since I've had the crabs in their their new habitat in the garage so we're gonna go in and check on them they're thriving and and doing very well and even very active I've only used about 20 of them to go sheepshead fish in one day which we had some success you'll see that here in a little bit but check this out foreign so they're all in here just a little habitat that I made and as you can see they're everywhere um and I just throw in some fish flakes and stuff like that they're currently eating right now you can see that guy eating okay a lot of more I've got some I'm fortunate enough to live about five minutes from you know our local water source here to Intracoastal Waterway so I can go get fresh salt water and brackish water from from the rivers and then even in the intercoastal there like I said um so we've got some crabs here in the water we've got them hiding in these cups and they've done look at this I just threw mud out there and they've got their holes already dug and whatnot they've had a whole habitat here and there's still even some that are down in and under the Rocks these are just a few here if you see those colored specks on the ground that is actually fish food I use this local fish flake food here just regular tropical fish is called tetramin and I just throw some flakes in there and they're good to go now as the weather warms up and it starts to get hot and all that and here and it could get to 90 degrees or so inside and even outside obviously you know how it is up to 100 degrees I won't be holding onto these crabs I'll probably use them there this is more like a late winter early spring throughout the spring when I'm hitting them out on the near shore reefs and when they start migrating back into the intercoastal waterways where I can hit them on dock so when it gets too warm I'll probably get rid of this until next time but there's an easy way to keep your crabs and keep them healthy and active [Music] okay well that's going to wrap things up everyone I hope you enjoyed that video here with all the crabs it's a pretty cool project you know you're not going to have them as pets or anything just remember that you're going to be using them for bait so as long as you keep them live and you know check on them every you know a couple days give them some food and make sure they're happy in their habitat they'll be good to go let me know if you have any comments or questions about this if you have any suggestions I might even do another one later on down the road if you uh if you sincerely enjoy this video until next time stay safe and we'll see you soon foreign [Music]

Channel: SC Fish Tales

Views: 24,598

Keywords: Sheepshead, fiddler, fiddler crabs, live bait, charleston

Id: MFCaEId_-8Y

Length: 12min 30sec (750 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 11 2023