Mud Crab Adventures - Port Smith

We hit up the lagoon at low tide and thought we would try our hand at ‘hooking’ mud crabs. After exploring the mud flats for a while we did not have much luck, but then I (Lauren) stumbled upon a monster hiding in a rock cave. Brett tried his best with the wire hook, but we could not get him out, eventually he went deep into the cave where we couldn’t see him anymore. We were devastated, but it motivated us all to come back out tonight on the next low tide and try again.

Although, the morning crabbing mission was unsuccessful, we found a heap of other cool things in the rock pools. The most exciting was the Lion Fish, which are extremely venomous, but very beautiful, the footage doesn’t do it justice. We also found turtles and a stingray stranded in the tidal pools.

After dinner, we set off with our torches ready to get the big monster mud crab. We did not get the one we were hunting, another crab had moved into his hole, but we cleaned up. We caught 3 mud crabs the last one having the biggest claws on it we have ever seen. One of its claws was the size of Brett’s hand. To say that Brett was happy was an understatement.

Brett cleaned them up and cooked chilli mud crab for tea the next night and could not stop talking about how this was the mud crab of his dreams. Let’s just say he was lucky to have me there as a spotter or he would have none 😉.Read more