Strange looking creatures - sort of a cross between a shrimp and a crawdad. Who knows anything about them?

Drum fishermen on the piers love 'em

My main goal in life is to find a beer as cold as a woman's heart

Where do they come from? How do you catch them? What eats them (other than drum)? One guy using them said they would bite the s-h-i-t out of you.

They're awesome bait for snappers. Shrimpers get some as bycatch.

How about for specks/redfish/gafftops?

I realize this is from CA, but did they look like this:

http://205.214.84.224/sandcrabs/history.asp

Not really. The critters I saw had more of a crawdad/lobster tail. The dude using them talked like they were aquatic bottom feeders.

You can catch anything with Sea Lice that you can catch on shrimp. They are bottom feeders. They look like something out of a science fiction movie. Kind of a cross between a caterpillar anda crab. Good Luck!

Go look around the rock groins and jetties. They are all over the rocks there.

I like to throw these out on a circle hook:



http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/08/furry.lobster.ap/index.html

quote:

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specks/redfish/gafftops

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I don't understand this grouping. Specks...good. Reds...good. Gafs? We damn near catch them on bare hooks, but not on purpose...nasty things.

You sure you aren't catching hardheads?

My buddy said they're the same things.

Now that I look at it, they aren't the same.

I haven't been fishing the coast in a couple years. To be honest, we've never had much luck, but then we are typically out there in the June/July timeframe, so it may be too hot then.

Anyway, we're doing something wrong, cause we can't hardly catch anything worth keeping. I'm going down there this year if I have to drive down the night before and sleep in the truck.

If a about a yard of snot clinging to your line appears before the fish, you've got a gaffer. Otherwise, it's a hard one.

If you're not wanting to waste your time and money on either of the nasties, I'd suggest the following:

- use live bait. Dead bait catches dead weight.

- keep your bait off the bottom. Popping cock's work...use it just like it's namesake and pop the hell out of it every 3-5 secs. if there's some chop or a good tide, and if it's slow water and quiet, don't be so loud and frequent.

If you have to go deep for good fish, use what hardly anyone else does on the cork and slip rig it (as an aside, why is that people refuse to rig it that way? You can put it 20+ ft. down on an avg. tide).

- if the fish are particularly finicky, free-line your bait.

- or be a real man, stop potlicking, and throw arties. Hard baits, soft baits, it doesn't matter.

Don't be surprised if you still manage a few nasty ones (especially with live bait, tails, and spoons), but they'll be much less frequent in number. However, occasionally you'll get a day where nothing you do shuts them down. Just last year I caught no less than 15 gaffers on the beach using a Ghost in the best water of the year. W/ my glasses I literally watched 3 of them beat fairly good size trout to my bait.

I cussed enough to destroy what was little was left of Hwy. 87 between Sabine and High Island.

As somebody said, the key to avoiding hardheads is to use live bait and keep it off the bottom. If you want to fish near the bottom without being ON the bottom, the best way is to use a slip sinker rigged about 2-3 feet above a single hook such that when the sinker is on the bottom, the shrimp can swim around freely, pulling line through the slip sinker that is rolling on the bottom. The shrimp will naturally swim up off the bottom to avoid the hard heads, presenting himself nicely to the trout swimming above the fray.

The key with live bait either under a cork, free shrimped, or near the bottom is to make the bait look as natural as possible. Popping corks work great on the surface when there is alot of bait around and the fish are aggressively feeding. Popping the cork will attract their attention. However, in flat water, with little current and not alot of bait near the surface, popping the cork every 3-5 seconds will make your bait look very out of place and will not be likely to attract much worth keeping. One thing I also see alot of people do is fish live bait with a shiny silver treble hook and 30 lb mono or wire leaders. Thats great if the fish are being very aggressive and mackerel are cutting your line. But when the fish are being less aggressive, the heavy line or leader and shiny hook are likely to spook them. In flat water in the surf, I like to use 2/0 black hooks with about 6lb mono (as long as the mackerel aren't around) and free shrimp as long as the wind isn't too strong to cast.

Then again, as somebody said, the right artificial for the conditions is almost always the best bait and least likely to get you a hardhead.

I've never used them, but I've heard they work good for trout in the surf. Fish them like shrimp under a rattle cork.

I have started using sea lice this year for big black drum here in Corpus. I have caught multiple fish over fourty inches on them. They are a shrimp bycatch product.

The small fish don't seem to prefer them quite as much as shrimp, which makes them a more ideal bait for the huge black drum this time of year. I have only used dead ones, but i have never heard of them biting. They are pretty strange looking creatures.

Gaffs can be some good eating. Not the case for harheads...freaking bait thieves.

[This message has been edited by pedro_martinez (edited 3/27/2006 10:00a).]

The guys at the pier in Cole Park have been catching quite a few gafftops lately right around sunset and after dark.