Thread: Salt Life

I knew you would figure out something! Tried that crab thing I couple times in Florida. But to much work for this old fat boy that don’t eat em anyway! Keep up the reports. Is they a pier close to ya out in the big water. Love fishin off the Ft. Walton Beach pier in Fla. . Never know what ya catch.


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Originally Posted by ofishlbizzness

I knew you would figure out something! Tried that crab thing I couple times in Florida. But to much work for this old fat boy that don’t eat em anyway! Keep up the reports. Is they a pier close to ya out in the big water. Love fishin off the Ft. Walton Beach pier in Fla. . Never know what ya catch.


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St. Augustine Pier is about 30 minutes from our house.
We go to the beach there when the wife's back allows. Been doing a little surf fishing when we go, but haven't had much luck yet.
Did catch a few bonnet head sharks, but too small to keep.
Fished the pier once. Only managed to catch 2 hard head salt water catfish. They tell me they ain't worth eating.
I here the Gaff topsail cats are really good though.
The public ramp on the St. John's River is only 5 minutes from me.
The Hwy 17 bridge is right there too. I know there's some deeper water there and shade, so when I get my trailer tires I'll be checking that spot out.
The specks as they call them down here should hold up under there in the cooler waters. Good current through there too.
Looking forward to hitting it at night too. I'm hoping once I getting started fishing I can get some other CDC members to come out and do a few gatherings like y'all do
I miss those, by the way.
Seems the fisherman and gals down here are pretty tight lipped and don't gather together much.
Also alot of bass tournaments held at that ramp too.
We just had one for a children's hospital that was 4 days and over 500 boats.
Man that was crazy seeing that many boats coming in the ramp.
Trucks and trailers lines both sides of most of the down town streets. Parking lot was full.
I did get a tight spot and fished the dock for about 2 hrs.
Catch one crappie and a brown bullhead catfish. Then the boat traffic and tide changed and messed it up...lol
Gotta love tidal rivers and 500 boat tournaments...LoL
Pretty quick getting everyone loaded up and out to the weigh in spot.


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Well if you like surf fishing, take them crabs with you. Biggest mistake people make is not using a quality bait.

You can clean a crab and cut him down the middle and put halves on circle hooks and catch redfish, black drum, bonnet head, and cobia. You can take that halved crab and using scissors cut between his legs and segment them. Then trim leg near where it attaches and put hook through the hole where you cut the leg, and out. End up with six or eight baits per crab. These are called Crab Knuckles. These catch redfish, black drum, whiting, and pompano.

Another great bait is sand fleas and they will catch many very fine fish for you. I also like FishBites in the bright orange Sand Flea flavor. Cut them about an inch long and pierce them twice.

The sea is very seasonal and you have to fish for specie when they are in town. Late Summer early Fall the mullet begin their migration South. That is the deal right there. Castnetting mullet for bait is a way to catch some monster fish. I had hooked a few large tarpon, but only landed one. It was 100 pounds and took me almost two hours to land. Mullet are also very good eating in their own right.

Throwing a net is a skill a man just has to acquire.

You can catch shrimp in the river with a net when they are in season. Late Summer you will see people on the municipal pier tossing cast nets. Especially in the evening. Shrimp are deep during the day, and come shallow at night. They like to come to lights and chum. Exceptional way to spend an evening.

Be mindful of the various rules. Many are written so as to trick you into a trap. Even while in freshwater, you might need a saltwater license. Shrimping is that way. You should get a saltwater/freshwater combo license and be done.

Crab traps are tricky. If you get in a commercial man’s lines, he will pull your crabs for you. Otherwise the thieves might get your crabs if left put too long. You can usually tell which one got your crabs because the commercial guy is a professional. He will close the pot back up before he tosses it back. LOL. Doesn’t want you to realize he got your crabs. LOL. The local judges really hammer crab pot thieves, and the FWC loves to stake out and nab them. Kind of like stealing a man’s split firewood, get your but tore up down here.

South of you a tad is some really good crappie fishing. Astor, FL is well known for such. Crescent Lake and others are also well known. Rodman Damn area has large crappie.

One of the very finest ways a man could spend a day with his wife is at the springs. Salt Springs is just a short drive away. Simply amazing, and what a God send on a hot day like yesterday. Get there early or the park fills up and no more allowed in.


A crab has a very delicate flavor which is easily over powered by boiling them. You wash away the flavor. I won a crab cook off contest in Jacksonville a few years back. A dozen teams with all sorts of gear and expensive cookers and very impressive setups. I showed up with a cooler, a cutting board, a hatchet, and a small burner with a steamer pot. Man did they ever laugh. Each team came by to see the dumb man what was going to be so embarrassed. They laughed in my face as if I was merely a fool. Well when it was all over, everyone of those teams came back to congratulate me on a fine win. The judges said it wasn’t even close.

Here you go: Never cook a dead crab !!!!

If he is wiggling his legs he is alive. Now he can die in your refrigerator and still be edible, but in a basket in the open air no way. They spoil extremely quickly and generate an intense sickness. They say you beg for death.

Use tongs to toss live crabs into a cooler with a slurry of ice and water with a little salt in it. Let soak a few minutes, then you can handle them with your bare hands. Take them out and turn upside down on board. Lay hatchet on midline and strike with your palm to cut him in two. He is dead now. Peel shell, scrape dead man fingers, rip off face, and wash with a hose to clean away innards. Place in steamer pot and finish cleaning the rest of the crabs. Then remove them from steamer and dust them with Old Bay and put them back inside in a layering fashion so the steam can rise through the column and get to ll of them.

The steamer should hold enough liquid so as not to boil off and leave the pot dry. Smaller is fine and you just do several batches. The later batches will be better eating due to additions to the liquid from previous batches. I like to add Old Bay to the water, but also some salt, some beer, and a little bit of vinegar. The vinegar helps the meat to slide out of the shell.

When steaming crabs keep in mind that the trick is to cook them to where they peel easily.

Like with shrimp, they can be over cooked and the shells become difficult to pull away. Over cooking is the biggest mistake people make. I suggest that you should cook just a couple to learn the timing. Try to pull them as soon as they are done. I mean as soon as they are done. This time will vary with the pot design and the level of crabs within. Once you get it just so, the meat pulls easily. You can wrench a leg off and out comes the meat from within the segmented body. Mmmmmmm…… now that is how to eat a crab.

So next time, you do the cooking and I bet you will fall in love with the blue crab. I grew up in a family that ran crab pots in the Potomac River in Virginia. Same green river crabs you are catching down here. We did recreational crabbing in Green Cove Springs, but that is the same as Palatka. Salt water crabs have more blue.

There is a paper mill pulp plant nearby and they have been dumping dioxins into the river for decades. It is in the river mud and it will be eons before it goes away. Because the river is tidal, and washes pollution back and forth, not a steady stream out. Ancient river, and like the Nile flows in a Northerly direction. Cleaning the crabs and rinsing away the innards also flushes the vast majority of any pollution. Some crybaby that there is no mustard. Well they need to learn a little about crab anatomy to learn exactly what that mustard really is. LOL Let me say it this way… they wouldn’t eat a chicken’s mustard. LOL

So many things are right there at your feet. I caught a huge redfish just across the river from the municipal pier in Palatka. Every so often, you will spot some idiot wearing a sandwich board saying I will not steal from this store again. I have seen them with signs saying I stole from someone’s crab pot, too.

The town is completely dependent on that pulp wood plant. Best paying jobs around there. Stink…..man when the wind is right hang on.

Visit Ravine Gardens and try to get to those springs. A great place to surf fish is a place called Varn Park. It is South of St Augustine, down A1A. Deep water in close to shore so a long cast is not required. Sand fleas can be had there if you look for them. There is a bait store in the Hammocks area that usually has fleas for sale. Mantanzas is a low impact beach and therefor shallow a long ways out. I can cast a really really long ways and can reach the fish there, but most are fishing in a foot of water and don’t know it. Near the inlet is where the best fishing is there at that beach.

If you go across on SR 100, it dead ends into A1A and you would turn left to get to Varn Park. At that light is a great place to eat. The Golden Lion. Live bands and the drinks are cheap and their specialty is a fried fish basket. Cod or haddock, I am not sure which but you will not be able to finish all of it. Costs $14 and comes with fries and slaw. Looks like a tourist trap but them is mostly locals.

Google Mortician’s Rig and learn to tie that one and it will serve you very well. Yes, I am the mortician and yes I invented it. I was a surf fishing fiend and totally captivated by it. You can always ask me questions, too. I taught lots of people and used to conduct seminars. Fishing clubs mostly. I have a friend that has a website that sells the very best sinkers a man could ever want. The Sinker Guy. He is wearing a big hat in his logo. Look him up and get some of his sinkers. He also sells ready made rigs if you can’t tie them yourself.

Tell him his old buddy FM sent you.

Originally Posted by Micanopy

Well if you like surf fishing, take them crabs with you. Biggest mistake people make is not using a quality bait.

You can clean a crab and cut him down the middle and put halves on circle hooks and catch redfish, black drum, bonnet head, and cobia. You can take that halved crab and using scissors cut between his legs and segment them. Then trim leg near where it attaches and put hook through the hole where you cut the leg, and out. End up with six or eight baits per crab. These are called Crab Knuckles. These catch redfish, black drum, whiting, and pompano.

Another great bait is sand fleas and they will catch many very fine fish for you. I also like FishBites in the bright orange Sand Flea flavor. Cut them about an inch long and pierce them twice.

The sea is very seasonal and you have to fish for specie when they are in town. Late Summer early Fall the mullet begin their migration South. That is the deal right there. Castnetting mullet for bait is a way to catch some monster fish. I had hooked a few large tarpon, but only landed one. It was 100 pounds and took me almost two hours to land. Mullet are also very good eating in their own right.

Throwing a net is a skill a man just has to acquire.

You can catch shrimp in the river with a net when they are in season. Late Summer you will see people on the municipal pier tossing cast nets. Especially in the evening. Shrimp are deep during the day, and come shallow at night. They like to come to lights and chum. Exceptional way to spend an evening.

Be mindful of the various rules. Many are written so as to trick you into a trap. Even while in freshwater, you might need a saltwater license. Shrimping is that way. You should get a saltwater/freshwater combo license and be done.

Crab traps are tricky. If you get in a commercial man’s lines, he will pull your crabs for you. Otherwise the thieves might get your crabs if left put too long. You can usually tell which one got your crabs because the commercial guy is a professional. He will close the pot back up before he tosses it back. LOL. Doesn’t want you to realize he got your crabs. LOL. The local judges really hammer crab pot thieves, and the FWC loves to stake out and nab them. Kind of like stealing a man’s split firewood, get your but tore up down here.

South of you a tad is some really good crappie fishing. Astor, FL is well known for such. Crescent Lake and others are also well known. Rodman Damn area has large crappie.

One of the very finest ways a man could spend a day with his wife is at the springs. Salt Springs is just a short drive away. Simply amazing, and what a God send on a hot day like yesterday. Get there early or the park fills up and no more allowed in.


A crab has a very delicate flavor which is easily over powered by boiling them. You wash away the flavor. I won a crab cook off contest in Jacksonville a few years back. A dozen teams with all sorts of gear and expensive cookers and very impressive setups. I showed up with a cooler, a cutting board, a hatchet, and a small burner with a steamer pot. Man did they ever laugh. Each team came by to see the dumb man what was going to be so embarrassed. They laughed in my face as if I was merely a fool. Well when it was all over, everyone of those teams came back to congratulate me on a fine win. The judges said it wasn’t even close.

Here you go: Never cook a dead crab !!!!

If he is wiggling his legs he is alive. Now he can die in your refrigerator and still be edible, but in a basket in the open air no way. They spoil extremely quickly and generate an intense sickness. They say you beg for death.

Use tongs to toss live crabs into a cooler with a slurry of ice and water with a little salt in it. Let soak a few minutes, then you can handle them with your bare hands. Take them out and turn upside down on board. Lay hatchet on midline and strike with your palm to cut him in two. He is dead now. Peel shell, scrape dead man fingers, rip off face, and wash with a hose to clean away innards. Place in steamer pot and finish cleaning the rest of the crabs. Then remove them from steamer and dust them with Old Bay and put them back inside in a layering fashion so the steam can rise through the column and get to ll of them.

The steamer should hold enough liquid so as not to boil off and leave the pot dry. Smaller is fine and you just do several batches. The later batches will be better eating due to additions to the liquid from previous batches. I like to add Old Bay to the water, but also some salt, some beer, and a little bit of vinegar. The vinegar helps the meat to slide out of the shell.

When steaming crabs keep in mind that the trick is to cook them to where they peel easily.

Like with shrimp, they can be over cooked and the shells become difficult to pull away. Over cooking is the biggest mistake people make. I suggest that you should cook just a couple to learn the timing. Try to pull them as soon as they are done. I mean as soon as they are done. This time will vary with the pot design and the level of crabs within. Once you get it just so, the meat pulls easily. You can wrench a leg off and out comes the meat from within the segmented body. Mmmmmmm…… now that is how to eat a crab.

So next time, you do the cooking and I bet you will fall in love with the blue crab. I grew up in a family that ran crab pots in the Potomac River in Virginia. Same green river crabs you are catching down here. We did recreational crabbing in Green Cove Springs, but that is the same as Palatka. Salt water crabs have more blue.

There is a paper mill pulp plant nearby and they have been dumping dioxins into the river for decades. It is in the river mud and it will be eons before it goes away. Because the river is tidal, and washes pollution back and forth, not a steady stream out. Ancient river, and like the Nile flows in a Northerly direction. Cleaning the crabs and rinsing away the innards also flushes the vast majority of any pollution. Some crybaby that there is no mustard. Well they need to learn a little about crab anatomy to learn exactly what that mustard really is. LOL Let me say it this way… they wouldn’t eat a chicken’s mustard. LOL

So many things are right there at your feet. I caught a huge redfish just across the river from the municipal pier in Palatka. Every so often, you will spot some idiot wearing a sandwich board saying I will not steal from this store again. I have seen them with signs saying I stole from someone’s crab pot, too.

The town is completely dependent on that pulp wood plant. Best paying jobs around there. Stink…..man when the wind is right hang on.

Visit Ravine Gardens and try to get to those springs. A great place to surf fish is a place called Varn Park. It is South of St Augustine, down A1A. Deep water in close to shore so a long cast is not required. Sand fleas can be had there if you look for them. There is a bait store in the Hammocks area that usually has fleas for sale. Mantanzas is a low impact beach and therefor shallow a long ways out. I can cast a really really long ways and can reach the fish there, but most are fishing in a foot of water and don’t know it. Near the inlet is where the best fishing is there at that beach.

If you go across on SR 100, it dead ends into A1A and you would turn left to get to Varn Park. At that light is a great place to eat. The Golden Lion. Live bands and the drinks are cheap and their specialty is a fried fish basket. Cod or haddock, I am not sure which but you will not be able to finish all of it. Costs $14 and comes with fries and slaw. Looks like a tourist trap but them is mostly locals.

Google Mortician’s Rig and learn to tie that one and it will serve you very well. Yes, I am the mortician and yes I invented it. I was a surf fishing fiend and totally captivated by it. You can always ask me questions, too. I taught lots of people and used to conduct seminars. Fishing clubs mostly. I have a friend that has a website that sells the very best sinkers a man could ever want. The Sinker Guy. He is wearing a big hat in his logo. Look him up and get some of his sinkers. He also sells ready made rigs if you can’t tie them yourself.

Tell him his old buddy FM sent you.

Micanopy, thank you for all the information you have here.
I will be using it.
When we first moved down here we stayed in Salt Springs Resort for a few months and then at the KOA. I fished the lower dam area a few times from the pier. Right side if looking down stream.
I plan on fishing that canal soon. I saw some longline trolling going on so I want to too.
I work 8 days on and 6 days off.
Unless I have work OT. Then I'm gone for about a month.
So when I get tires and gas, bait money I want to start learning the areas around here.
I've been to George's Lake near Florahome once.
Didn't do terrible. I caught a about 25 but only kept 11.
First time luck I guess.
I fish the municipal park pier some and have caught some good specks there just not in numbers. Also caught a 7 1/2 lb LM.
Once we get settled in and straightened out I hope to do lots more fishing. Surf fishing is something I need to learn more on. I did it every year for a week since I was a kid on the NC coast, but never really found them. Florida surf fishing offers more species and different methods, so I want to learn.
Also want to fish the Maz.

As for the crabs, I really liked them and hope to do that more too. So your information will be used for sure. Just need to get a steamer. Our cousin boils them.
So I look forward to trying them steamed.

Again, thank you for your reply and the helpful information you sent my way.
Not sure how close we are but if you ever want a fishing buddy from time to time let me know.
If Im not working, I'd love to fish with you and learn from you.


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Very informative post Micanopy. I'm sure your comments will help others to catch fish. Thanks for sharing.