Looking for a local shop that sells fiddler crabs

Reel Mullarkey

Hey guys,

I haven't checked the forum or gone fishing in a while and I see there's been a bunch of change around here.
Anyway, I was up in Jacksonville a few weeks ago and brought back some fiddler crabs to try em out around some of the docks and bridges etc... Well, I tore em up and I'm out of bait.

I didn't realize how much I missed fishing until I got on a couple hot bites the past week. The first day was a short trip from 4-6 in the Loxahatchee River, we caught 4 good sheepshead and a nice slot red fish! I went the next day from 4-6 solo and didn't get any keepers. I had to wait a few days since work was getting in my way but I was able to get back out on Sunday & I fished all day. I must have caught 50 fish but I only kept a few that were legal. Even though the fish were small it was still a great day!

Now I'm hooked on Sheepshead fishing and I need to get some bait!

Does anyone know of a local bait shop that sells fiddler crabs?

Does anyone have any suggestions of other bait to use for sheepshead and how to rig it?

Here's some of the pics for the last 3 trips








I don't know why it's still so hard to load photos onto this forum but I tried to load a bunch more and they all keep getting rejected. Oh well, I was about to show you fishing whole anyway...

Flight Risk

Reel Mullarkey wrote: »

I just called Seven Seas, is that the place your talking about? The guy asked me to repeat myself. He doesn't sell em or know anyone that does around here. Thanks for the tip though.

Jon,
I just called Chris.
He said there's been a couple requests for them, he's got a source and expects to have them in a few weeks.

His business is called:
The Rod Room
301 East Blue Heron Blvd.
Riviera Beach, FL 33604
Phone: 561-541-9911

As you approach the Blue Heron Bridge, just look for the Billboard sign at the foot of the bridge. He's right underneath it. There's aboutf 3 or 4 other bait or tackle shops in that area including the one you mentioned. Go past them to the east.
Let us know how it works out for you.
BB

tunawahoo

Use live shrimp.

Reel Mullarkey

Flight Risk wrote: »

Jon,
I just called Chris.
He said there's been a couple requests for them, he's got a source and expects to have them in a few weeks.

His business is called:
The Rod Room
301 East Blue Heron Blvd.
Riviera Beach, FL 33604
Phone: 561-541-9911

As you approach the Blue Heron Bridge, just look for the Billboard sign at the foot of the bridge. He's right underneath it. There's aboutf 3 or 4 other bait or tackle shops in that area including the one you mentioned. Go past them to the east.
Let us know how it works out for you.
BB

I can't thank you enough Bill! I'll call him a few times as well. I did a lot of sheepshead fishing in Jacksonville but the water is so dark it's all about the "feel" but down here I can watch them swim down and eat the bait! We'll have to go fishing together if he really gets them in. I'll make sure to post if I get some from any where else.
They charge a good dime for fiddlers in Jax, something like $9 per cup (Red Solo Cup to be exact). I was able to keep them alive for a week in my garage. I jut put them in a bucket with a wet paper towel on the bottom and changed the towel each day. I pulled out the dead ones and froze them for later, hopefully they work frozen as well.

Reel Mullarkey

tunawahoo wrote: »

Use live shrimp.

Every time I try live shrimp I get swamped with tiny little fish that eat the bait faster than I can get it to the bottom. I have caught a couple decent sheepshead on shrimp but the by catch is annoying. There is still by catch with the fiddlers but it's more like Hog fish, porgies, and Snappers.

Fi$h2nguyen

Way to rack em up.

Flight Risk

Reel Mullarkey wrote: »

We'll have to go fishing together if he really gets them in. I'll make sure to post if I get some from any where else.

Sounds good Jon, I'd like to see what a Sheepshead on Crack looks like. :grin
Might want to touch base with him so he knows you want them also. I'm free all the time, PM me when youre heading out again.

OverslotsOnly

Sheepshead fishing is very underrated in this region. It's a huge deal up north! But it can be a blast and is often my plan B when I bring friends fishing to catch something they can eat or when the snook don't seem to be cooperating.

~TACKLE~

I do very well with about 3 feet of 15-20 lb fluorocarbon leader and a 1/0 or 2/0 live bait hook (black, brown, or gray in color to match the bait - avoid silver if possible). And braided main line is more sensitive than mono for feeling the bite and without stretch in the line you can better determine when your bait is on the bottom. Depending on the current, wave action, size of the bait, etc, I'll freeline or use with a small splitshot or two. If I decide to use weights, I prefer to employ the split shots 6-12 inches above the hook if I use them and have found that they work much better than jig heads or slip sinkers.

~BAIT~

As far as bait, catch your own! We may not have as many fiddler crabs as further up the east coast or the panhandle, but we dove have alternatives that work just as well:

Mangrove crabs - These are the ones with spots and reddish claws that you often see on dock pilings and on mangrove prop roots. They vary in size, but most are around the size of a quarter. They have powerful claws that can clamp down pretty hard (harder than fiddler crabs or black marsh crabs). Not as numerous as black marsh crabs.

Black marsh crabs - BEST BET - Check under rocks in the intertidal zone around mangrove shorelines or riprap. Look for small brown / dark gray / black crabs. Usually numerous and plentiful, but can often have a fragile exoskeleton. These come in a variety of sizes - from smaller than the size of a dime to quarter size.

I hook these crabs directly up through the belly to make sure they stay on the hook. If the size of the crabs is too small, don't be afraid to put two or three to a single hook.

And I've actually fished these two types side by side with fiddler crabs and actually had better luck with them. I've caught snapper and snook of all sizes on them as well (among other less desirable species).

~TACTICS~

As far as tactics, you can draw in a lot of sheepshead if you use a shovel to scrape oysters and barnacles from seawalls, docks, bridge supports, etc. to chum them in. After about 10-15 mins, you should have droves of sheepshead coming to the location. But otherwise, I usually cast from piling to piling. Along docks, if your bait isn't picked up in about 30 seconds to a minute, move on to the next piling. You're goal is to cover area and hit as many pilings as possible til you find a productive one.


That should pretty well cover the basics. I also live in Jupiter and if you'd like to fish some time or if you have any other specific questions, drop me a PM.

JIMinPB

I think that the Corner Store had live crabs the last time I was in there.

I usually catch my own crabs. I'm a big fan of local caught bait.

Glad to hear that you are getting out there & getting in on the shoreline action rather than letting post boat depression set in. I just haven't had tome to get out fishing in over a month now.

Gatoryaker

Sand fleas work very well for Sheepshead. I catch them occasionally in the surf near Sebastian Inlet on the fleas. i have heard of oysters being used to catch them as well. We also used to walk out on an oyster bar in Daytona and you could find small black crabs in the oyster shells at low tide. They worked very well. Wear good shoes and be careful handling the oyster shells or you can get a bad cut.

GRSC

I haven't had much luck getting crabs at local shops... and I love tangling with Sheepshead along my seawall. So and old fart on my block showed me his trick. Take a coffee can and wipe the inner edges with anything like leftover bait or dinner scraps and bury it up to the lip at the nearest tidal area (so the lip of the can is flush with the sand). Wait an hour (or less) and you'll have a whole mess of those marsh crabs.

Reel Mullarkey

GRSC wrote: »

I haven't had much luck getting crabs at local shops... and I love tangling with Sheepshead along my seawall. So and old fart on my block showed me his trick. Take a coffee can and wipe the inner edges with anything like leftover bait or dinner scraps and bury it up to the lip at the nearest tidal area (so the lip of the can is flush with the sand). Wait an hour (or less) and you'll have a whole mess of those marsh crabs.

Hey Geoffrey!
I bet you got a ton of those striped fish in your backyard! I like the coffee can idea. Jacksonville is covered in mud and some guys would bury a 5 gallon bucket in the mud and place 2x4"s in a pie shape towards the bucket, then as the crabs come out of their holes, they chase them into the bucket. I've never tried it but it makes sense. I just don't have the time to chase crabs, I can barely find time to fish...
Nice thing about fiddler crabs is they stay alive for days or weeks if you really take care of them. I'm gonna make some room in the carpet van for a rod, cooler & bait bucket pretty soon!

Reel Mullarkey

OverslotsOnly wrote: »

Sheepshead fishing is very underrated in this region. It's a huge deal up north! But it can be a blast and is often my plan B when I bring friends fishing to catch something they can eat or when the snook don't seem to be cooperating.

~TACKLE~

I do very well with about 3 feet of 15-20 lb fluorocarbon leader and a 1/0 or 2/0 live bait hook (black, brown, or gray in color to match the bait - avoid silver if possible). And braided main line is more sensitive than mono for feeling the bite and without stretch in the line you can better determine when your bait is on the bottom. Depending on the current, wave action, size of the bait, etc, I'll freeline or use with a small splitshot or two. If I decide to use weights, I prefer to employ the split shots 6-12 inches above the hook if I use them and have found that they work much better than jig heads or slip sinkers.

~BAIT~

As far as bait, catch your own! We may not have as many fiddler crabs as further up the east coast or the panhandle, but we dove have alternatives that work just as well:

Mangrove crabs - These are the ones with spots and reddish claws that you often see on dock pilings and on mangrove prop roots. They vary in size, but most are around the size of a quarter. They have powerful claws that can clamp down pretty hard (harder than fiddler crabs or black marsh crabs). Not as numerous as black marsh crabs.

Black marsh crabs - BEST BET - Check under rocks in the intertidal zone around mangrove shorelines or riprap. Look for small brown / dark gray / black crabs. Usually numerous and plentiful, but can often have a fragile exoskeleton. These come in a variety of sizes - from smaller than the size of a dime to quarter size.

I hook these crabs directly up through the belly to make sure they stay on the hook. If the size of the crabs is too small, don't be afraid to put two or three to a single hook.

And I've actually fished these two types side by side with fiddler crabs and actually had better luck with them. I've caught snapper and snook of all sizes on them as well (among other less desirable species).

~TACTICS~

As far as tactics, you can draw in a lot of sheepshead if you use a shovel to scrape oysters and barnacles from seawalls, docks, bridge supports, etc. to chum them in. After about 10-15 mins, you should have droves of sheepshead coming to the location. But otherwise, I usually cast from piling to piling. Along docks, if your bait isn't picked up in about 30 seconds to a minute, move on to the next piling. You're goal is to cover area and hit as many pilings as possible til you find a productive one.


That should pretty well cover the basics. I also live in Jupiter and if you'd like to fish some time or if you have any other specific questions, drop me a PM.

Thanks for the tips Overslot! I've been using a lot of those trick as well. I wonder if I saw some of your barnacle scratching over the weekend? I use to fish with the knocker rig but I switched to jig heads for shallow fishing. The head looks like the claw ans I think the fish eat it from the back, which has really improved my hook setting ratio. I had some great hook penetrations this last few trips!

I would upload a pic of the way I hook them but the forum keeps rejecting the picture. I would post a lot more reports if this site was a little easier to work with like Facebook or any of the others.IMG_0307.JPG

Flight Risk

Reel Mullarkey wrote: »

I would upload a pic of the way I hook them but the forum keeps rejecting the picture.

I found the rejection comes from the file size being too large, thus, is rejected.

I will upload my pics to my home PC. Many of the picture files are over a megabite which will surely be rejected.

I use Mozilla Firefox for email. That being said, I go to my picture (whatever folder it's in) and highlight it along with any other pictures I want to upload, then select 'Send to' from the pulldown menu, then 'Mail recipient' - from there it gives me an option to select the file size. I use the default (medium 1024x768) but there are other choices (1280x1024 for large) and (Small 800x600).
Thunderbird then sets it up as an outgoing email. I then 'save as' using the same filename and it replaces that pic with the reduced file size. From there, you can select and upload it to the forum. Before you do this, make sure the picture is oriented properly and saved, then go through the steps.

I know it sounds like a PIA, but it works for me. I take pics off my cell phone and email them to my home PC and do the rest on the PC.

For what it's worth...

Osprey45

You can also open them in MS paint and reduce the size just right click and go to open in paint

Reel Mullarkey

Well I be ****! That worked with the email trick. It's still a pain in the A$$! If the forum Gods could make that easier I bet we would get a huge uptick of people contributing... just saying. Thanks for the advice guys!

BTW I stopped by "The Reel Deal Rod Room" today and I was impressed! That guy has a ton of great stuff for 20-30% less than anybody else! I wish I took more money with me but I can always go back. IDK if any of you ever bought rods / reels from the guy with a garage full of merchandise on Singer Island but it's the same guy! We talked about getting some fiddlers in stock & he is all aboard. I'm going to talk to some people in Jacksonville and see if we can find someone that wants to make some money. Hopefully we can get it started down here.

Fireman Bill

I use pieces of FRESH dead shrimp on a chicken rig with 2 hooks. You get two swings before you have to rebait. Finding crabs is too much work. How many are you going to kill? I catch all I could ever use on shrimp.

Fireman Bill

Soda Popinski

If these things work so well as bait (and i'm sure they do) why does no one take the time to harvest them to sell?

Flfjack

GRSC wrote: »

I haven't had much luck getting crabs at local shops... and I love tangling with Sheepshead along my seawall. So and old fart on my block showed me his trick. Take a coffee can and wipe the inner edges with anything like leftover bait or dinner scraps and bury it up to the lip at the nearest tidal area (so the lip of the can is flush with the sand). Wait an hour (or less) and you'll have a whole mess of those marsh crabs.

This.

Flight Risk

Reel Mullarkey wrote: »

Well I be ****! That worked with the email trick.

Osprey45 wrote: »

You can also open them in MS paint and reduce the size just right click and go to open in paint

PS - Thanks Osprey45 - I didn't know how to do it with Windows. That sounds a whole lot easier than my current method.

:thumbsup

sub25gt

There are a couple shops in Jensen Beach that carry them. I always had better luck with live shrimp though.

Reel Mullarkey

sub25gt wrote: »

There are a couple shops in Jensen Beach that carry them. I always had better luck with live shrimp though.

Do you have a name or a hint at which shops? I've got the day off tomorrow and I want to fish!

Reel Mullarkey

Soda Popinski wrote: »

If these things work so well as bait (and i'm sure they do) why does no one take the time to harvest them to sell?

I'm not sure but I would have to ad "yet". Sheepshead fishing is a phenom a little further north. I use to do a lot more inshore fishing before I moved down here but with the Big Blue so close to port it's hard to take a day and not go offshore (IMO). Maybe they are a little more work to catch down here? I know I would rather buy them for a pretty penny than spend all day digging up bait.

Soda Popinski

Reel Mullarkey wrote: »

I'm not sure but I would have to ad "yet". Sheepshead fishing is a phenom a little further north. I use to do a lot more inshore fishing before I moved down here but with the Big Blue so close to port it's hard to take a day and not go offshore (IMO). Maybe they are a little more work to catch down here? I know I would rather buy them for a pretty penny than spend all day digging up bait.

I wonder if hermit crabs work just as well , you can get those at the pet store! Grab some goldfish for bass fishing too!

j/k, i know that's......BREAKIN THE LAW BREAKIN THE LAW!!!

Reel Mullarkey

Soda Popinski wrote: »

I wonder if hermit crabs work just as well , you can get those at the pet store! Grab some goldfish for bass fishing too!

j/k, i know that's......BREAKIN THE LAW BREAKIN THE LAW!!!

Is that really breaking the law? I'm gonna have to talk to Trump about that.

My kids had some hermit crabs die a few years ago and instead of digging up my yard I buried them in the river with a hook. I got a nice sheepshead off them too!

Soda Popinski

Reel Mullarkey wrote: »

Is that really breaking the law? I'm gonna have to talk to Trump about that.

My kids had some hermit crabs die a few years ago and instead of digging up my yard I buried them in the river with a hook. I got a nice sheepshead off them too!

the hermit crabs i have no idea, but the goldfish for bass, definitely a pretty big no no

Reel Mullarkey

Soda Popinski wrote: »

the hermit crabs i have no idea, but the goldfish for bass, definitely a pretty big no no

Abortion is legal but fishing with "pets" will get you arrested... unbelievable!

HallPass

Reel Mullarkey, I live in Jax. and Im heading down to West Palm on Monday 1/30/17. I should be there around 8pm. We are going on a charter to play with the sails and whatever else. Headed back Tuesday after we are done. If you would like some fiddlers, I can swing by Browns Creek Fish Camp and get you a quart. They will live 2 weeks or longer if you add a little salt water and a little sand helps. I'm sure we are going to stay somewhere close to wherever the charter boats are. I do not have all the details but message me your number if you want.

Reel Mullarkey

HallPass wrote: »

Reel Mullarkey, I live in Jax. and Im heading down to West Palm on Monday 1/30/17. I should be there around 8pm. We are going on a charter to play with the sails and whatever else. Headed back Tuesday after we are done. If you would like some fiddlers, I can swing by Browns Creek Fish Camp and get you a quart. They will live 2 weeks or longer if you add a little salt water and a little sand helps. I'm sure we are going to stay somewhere close to wherever the charter boats are. I do not have all the details but message me your number if you want.

I would be forever grateful! I'm sending a PM now!

I took some of the frozen fiddlers and went fishing this morning. Let em tell you something about that... those little things STINK! I washed my hands with OrPine and bleach but I've still got a hint of trash finger going... Frozen fiddlers work but they don't stay on the hook as well. I got one keeper sheep and my first legal snook, except it was very illegal since I got him in my cast net. No worries, I didn't even take a selfie with him before the release.

sub25gt

North Fork Bait & Tackle in Jensen has them sometimes. Steve is the owner.
4340 NW Federal Hwy, Jensen Beach, FL 34957
Phone: (772) 692-9938
Hours: Open today · 5:30AM–8PM

sub25gt

If not, try Billy Bones just north of North Fork on US1
Port St Lucie, FL 34952
Phone:(772) 335-3715
Hours: Open today · 5:30AM–8PM