[[email protected]]

This is for anyone who has ever waded in tranquil back-bay waters. If you wave a long wand or spin-fish using light tackle, you know what I?m taking about. For about 20 years now I?ve been hooked to the endless possibilities and benefits of this approach to fishing, but it still freaks me out when one of these prehistoric armored tanks bumps up against my boot. These things are relentless you can nudge them away with a slight tap of your boot, but for some reason this seems to make them more aggressive to either try to mate with your boot or engage in a bumping match with, what it thinks is another rival male. Hopefully I?m not alone on this one.

(This post edited by [email protected] on 03/09/2003)

 

[wader]

I've had the crap scared out of me on more then one occasion by those things.

There you are - beautiful night sky overhead, standing waist deep in the tranquil Nissequoge & all of a sudden something's crawling over your foot.

Almost yelled out & jumped out of the water to shore several times.

And yes - they seem to come back more agressively if you try to push them away with your foot.

 

[614078]

Most wader boots are brown. The male HSC thinks its a female so the male tries to mount your boot. So when you push them off they really try to latch on.

 

[wader]

In that respect - many men behave the same way with their wife...

 

[612579]

Next time one of those things try to hump my boot it's becoming eel pot bait. They works great and I won't look like a little girl when it scares the crap out of me every two minutes.

 

[[email protected]]

Funny stuff guys, you?re killing me.
There?s no denying that as practitioners of this art of ambush, we are only trying to re-enact that old primal urge to stalk and capture that which we hunt. As manly as this may appear, I don?t care how big or how tough a person thinks they are, when that horseshoe comes a knocking in the dead of night it?s likely to cause the octaves in a persons voice to increase a few decibels or even worst, a big ole stain.


?Come on down here and chum some of this sh*t?

 

[wader]

Yeah - your vocal range immediately goes from "TURK" BIG & STRONG to tinkerbell in about 2 seconds.

(This post edited by wader on 03/07/2003)

 

[newyorkcityman]

this wasn't fly fishing, but thought you guys would get a laugh.
we were fishing for stripers from shore in the east river in manhattan. my friend checks his bait and feels heavy dead weight. hmmm... haul it up and... 1 horshoe crab is snagged, but she was in the middle of mating. the other one was "attached" to her if you know what i mean! lol.
while being lifted up, their combined weight dislodged the hook.

 

[Jaiem]

Just as freaky is at night in the spring during the height of thier mating period you can hear the scraping and crunching of thier shells all up and down the shoreline. Very un-nerving in a quiet creek at night!

On a more somber note, for at least 3 years now I've been seeing less and less horseshoe crabs in the creeks I fish. there used to be hundreds, maybe thousands. But not any more. I hope it's just a cycle and not a sign of other problems.

Jaiem
ArtsNFlies.com

 

[614078]

Jaiem I have to agree with you. Did you also notice when there were lots of HSC around there was usually lots of stripers around the same area. And those same areas now have less stripers.

 

[wader]

I don't know..........
Come late June into early July the "Nessy" is so packed with romantic horseshoes I can't even wade in there.
Gotta wait for the honeymoon to end (about 2 weekends) before I can fish my favorite spot. Would literally have to walk on top of them to get into the river.

 

[[email protected]]

Horseshoe crabs are the preferred bait to use to catch American eel. Unique chemical odors emitted by egg-laden female horseshoe crabs strongly attract American eels to an eel pot. It is because of this strong attraction that eels prefer female horseshoe crabs to other types of bait. The eel pot fishery only uses female horseshoe crabs as bait. Male crabs do not emit the same chemical odors as the females and are not used. As a result, the eel fishery has the potential to change the ratio of males to females and affect the overall spawning population throughout the coast.

Biomedical firms catch thousands of horseshoe crabs to extract a biomedical product from their blood. The blood of the crab provides a valuable medical product critical to maintaining the safety of many drugs and devices used in medical care. This product, known as Limulus Amebocyte Lysate or LAL, is synthesized from the blood of live adult crabs. After bleeding, the live crabs are returned to the sea. Recent studies have indicated that approximately 15% of the crabs harvested for this purpose may die from handling.

 

[[email protected]]

Just a thought, can it be possible that this unique chemical odor emitted by the female horseshoe crab is being dragged onto shore and also being dispersed through out the shallows. The vibration caused while wading coupled with our boots becoming so heavily laden with this aphrodisiac, would probably cause the male to want to make a boot call.

 

[wader]

THANKS FLATS

Now I gotta go home & burn my waders..

 

[Brown Trout]

Name change

Maybe we should start calling them
"humpshoe crabs"

Just a thought...This cabin fever is killing me!

 

[614872]

Orgy in the Niss.

I agree with Wader... I tried to fish the worm hatch at the Niss last year and the place was crawling with crabs. I found it hard to believe that there could be a population shortage. Interesting connection with eels and stripers though. If you see crabs, you can assume there are eels around, and therefore stripers. Guess the thing to do for us sissies is to just fish from shore w/o wading.

 

[614465]

How Funny.....

I was thinking I was the only one freaked out when you suddenly get bumped in the night...and then the HSC comes back for more....actually by a beach in Huntington area that I fish, the Bass usually show up right allong with the HSC's...

 

[615965]

NEWS NEWS NEWS,,, the horshoe crabs are makin there way into the shallows, bass usually follow the same schedule seen a few yesterday dry-humpin my wader boot