We know crabs are a tautog’s favorite meal; but which ones are best?
Tautog, tog, blackfish or slippery bass as they’re also known are part of wrasse family, and can grow from New Jersey’s 15-inch keeper size on up to world record status of nearly 29 pounds. These fish are all muscle, and it takes some practice learning to navigate the jetties and wrecks in search of a good one; and they’ll do just about anything to keep you from ripping it away from the structure, should you hook up!
With the one-fish limit back in place as of August 1, it’s important to understand just exactly what a tautog prefers for its next meal.
Inshore & Offshore
The most popular bait that anglers use to catch tautog is the green crab, which can be bought by the dozen at most tackle shops once the one-fish limit is in place. Growing to about the size of your palm, the green crab can be cut with scissors according to its size and split into two to four pieces of bait. The great thing about green crabs is that they will work well both offshore as well as inshore and are “blackfish candy.” A lot of seasoned offshore blackfish guys will use a double hooked or “tandem” rig, hooking one hook in each side of the crab. This usually results in a giant tog coming over the rail.
However, there are other choices of crab that we use to catch tautog, mostly according to the personal success that an angler may have. The Asian shore crab is quickly becoming a favorite of the inshore guys. The shore crab very much resembles a small green crab, and they only grow to the size of a quarter, with the smallest roughly the size of a dime. However, they cannot be bought at bait shops today, and one must flip small rocks on the low tide to hand catch these elusive little critters. Gloves are recommended, as these crabs do pinch the hands of those attempting to grab them as they scurry.
Asian shore crabs are not indigenous, but arrived on our Northeast shores by allegedly being spit out of the bilge system of a cargo ship coming from Asia in the 80s. Since then, the population of the shore crab has increased 100-fold, with a single female able to breed 200 to 400 young crabs, sometimes twice a year. The crabs were first documented in Townsend’s Inlet in the summer of 1988 by a group of biology students led by Professor John McDermott from Franklin-Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
The shore crab female has a thick pad on her underside making it more difficult for the bait-thieving blackfish to swipe them too quickly, which has earned this bait a top preference for the more seasoned inshore tog veterans. The shore crab is also a favorite food fish for other summer visitors like triggerfish and sheepshead.
The shore crab seems to be most effective on the inshore rock piles; I have talked to many offshore guys who haven’t done as well with them on the reefs and wrecks, their size more than likely the main factor. But the Asian shore crab is more than likely here to stay, and unlike other foreign, nuisance species these crabs are a great addition to the recreational fishing industry.
Other “Reliables”
The fiddler is another old reliable when it comes to togging, one which anglers can collect themselves. These are the crabs you will see in huge numbers out on the marshes on sunny days, with one large claw and one small one. Fiddlers have excellent eyes for detecting movement, and will scurry back into their small, muddy holes for a safe hiding spot. Fiddlers can be caught out on the meadows in good numbers with a little bit of planning. The veterans use an old glass or tin bowl, bury it in the marsh, toss some bunker in it, and cover it with burlap to make it seagull proof. They come back in an hour or so and there can be up to a few hundred crabs in the bowl, as the slippery sides prevent the crabs from getting out. Or you can do it “old school” by prodding the hole with a stick until the fiddler reluctantly comes out. Fiddlers, like shore crabs, are commonly used on inshore wrecks and jetties, and are not super productive on offshore, larger fish. This again is probably due to their small size.
| SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE RIGGING |
| As far as rigging each and every type of crab available in our arsenal, there is a universal technique used to hook up these crabs to maximize your chances of a quick hook-up. Those not employing a tautog jig will use a simple dropper loop rig with their hook about 6 inches above the weight. This not only allows you to feel those little bumps when the tog hits, but also keeps the sinker from interfering with your hook set.
Also, most good tog fishermen will bury the hook entirely inside the crab or bury the hook close to the legs of the crab so as to fool the tog, and it doesn’t feel the rigid hook embedded in the bait. Blackfish are probably the most clever of bait thieves as any fish you will target; practices like hooking hard spots on a crab or burying your hooks is an age-old trick that will give you that one extra split second to set that hook when that blackfish is down there seemingly using a pair of invisible hands to unhook your baited rig! |
Another crustacean on the long list of tog attractors is the Jonah crab, or white legger. These crabs are a little larger than the smaller shore crab or fiddler, but are another ideal choice in the reef and wreck fishery. The green crab and the white legger are both a favorite of offshore use because of the fact that the togs that targeted offshore are typically bigger than the inshore spawning fish, so much larger bait is needed to entice a double-digit sized blackfish to the hook. White leggers, like green crabs, are sold at most bait shops, and are easy to obtain by simply buying a couple dozen for your trip. Offshore togging is a “hopped up” version of jetty or sod bank togging, so bigger hooks are used as well as bait to match. For this purpose, green crabs or white leggers are the first choice of 90% of offshore tog fishermen.
We’ve all been on the beach at some point digging up sand fleas, commonly called mole crabs. These crabs look a little like a tiny armadillo and are bright white in color. Veteran toggers will use the opportunity to catch mole crabs near a jetty or groin they are going to fish; these crabs are much smaller than other crabs, but typically work well inshore. In the past few years as more crustaceans have become available as tog bait, I have noticed an incline of those using mole crabs, especially in areas where they are eaten by blackfish as a natural bait; in other words, match the hatch!
Boardwalk Eats
Another choice in the quest for the perfect blackfish bait is the hermit crab. Hermit crabs live in discarded shells of snails and other deceased crustaceans, and are widely used down south for bait where there is a large abundance of them. In the Northeast there are plenty of hermit crabs to be had, but one must go and seek them out and catch a good number of them as well. Hermit crabs grow rather quickly and must change shells as they grow, sometimes once or twice in a single day.
I remember when my granddaughter brought a few dozen hermit crabs home from Barnegat Bay one day and put them in the bathtub while my son prepared a tank. As night fell, we went to get the hermit crabs from the tub and put them into the tank. As we flipped the bathroom light on, we saw that nearly every single hermit had left their shells and were in the process of “switching out” shells, proving their fast growth and need to frequently relocate to a larger environment. Hermit crabs make a great bait for tautog and sheepshead, and we once caught a keeper fluke that spit up a hermit on the deck of the boat, more than likely foraged upon while in the act of changing housing.
Once you have mastered the art of hooking and horsing tog up out of the comfort of their tangled web of underwater structure, the rewards are well worth the effort. For the tog is one of, if not the best eating fish out there due to their diet of crabs and their desire to stay down in cool, clean, water.
It takes a bit of practice and a few persistent trips on the rocks to become a successful togger; I must admit, I nearly gave up several times after losing many rigs and coming home togless. But as any good angler, I kept at it until success set in, and now I can toss a rig on a rock pile and sometimes catch 10 or 15 before losing a single rig, and usually it breaks from rubbing rocks.
Practice makes perfect; good luck and great fishing.
