Stone crabs return, prices hold steady - Bradenton Herald

[octobot]

[SIZE=-2]Bradenton Herald[/SIZE]
Stone crabs return, prices hold steady
[SIZE=-1]Bradenton Herald[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]One troubling sign that has popped up are octopus. “We are catching quite a bit of octopus in the traps, octopus eat a lot of crab meat, they follow the ...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]and more [/SIZE]


More...

 

[Joe-Ceph]

So what species of octopus are they probably finding? It sounds like it wouldn't take much convincing to get a crab fisherman to keep and sell a few of those octopus to Tonmo People. I imagine that they are all adults, but maybe some are young. Has anybody looked into this potential source?

 

[CaptFish]

Briareus, and Vulgaris. The ones that do sell them get them to Tom of Tom's Caribbean. IUnfortuately they make great bait. A lot of them, myself not included, use the octopuses as bait, as that is our biggest expense. it hard not to use free bait. I have had tons of great crab this year but I have not personally gotten any octos yet.

 

[DWhatley]

Very good to hear the crab season is positive after last year's dismal catch (especially at the end). Kara (sealifeinc.net) is also trying to encourage some of the crabbers to trade in some of the smaller ones for the pet trade but so far Tom is the only one we see with them.