Crays

[Lenny]

Hey if you wanna go grab some crays during that time give me a shout!, I'm on leave then and it's just about my favorite past time.

We usually dive a place called soetwater, where the kelpbeds go 300m out to sea! Sometimes we spend the whole morning in the water, Often we take people who hold premits with us just to sit on the beach so we can collect more crays. So we usually take car inner tube with nets on it to keep all our crays in. this follows us on a rope, and it also serves as a nice resting place after treading water for 2-3 hours. Each of us take with us 3-6 wire rigs of full of limpets attached to 6m ropes attached to little bouys(coke bottles). We use limpets for a few reasons: 1) its free 2) They don't attract sharks which is a big problem with bait bags cos the sharks and seals rip them to pieces, and then you have to swim 300m to shore cos you have no more bait! 3) it's easier to carry and to throw them 4)you save your wetsuits from pilchard guts and very bad fishy smell.

So that's how my buddies and I do it.

[mupwi]

hi there

Lenny could you plz describe these wire rigs you mentioned maybe a pic it sounds interesting. I normally just look for them peeking out there holes slip the end of my speer under there front legs and flick them out before they know whats happening and have time to grab on then pick them up before they run back home

[Lenny]

Nothing really advanced, I collect limpets with a paint scraper or old knife. Then I have like a steel pick effort (welders use it to for something) which I use to knock holes in their shells. Then I just string about 20 of them on a piece of wire and twist the two ends together, kinda like a limpet necklace. attach that to some rope and a plastic coke bottle and there you go.

In soetwater you can look around under rocks, but it will take you the whole day and you still might not come out with your quota. This is much easier, especially if the viz is bad. I have caught my full quota in water so murky I could not see the end of my arm. It lures them out of their holes and into the open.

[Lenny]

Ah i see the confusion, i said limpet rigs instead of limpet rings.

Mr X. we just use whatever limpets we can find. I don´t think crays are that fussy, they are scavengers after all.