Hey Colby, we loved catching Dungeness living in the northwest, so it was only natural to get into crabbing when we moved down here. Ill just give my observations and you can take from it what you want....
First on gear. The pots that fish the best have two chambers. The crabs crawl inside the 4 openings on the bottom and eventually find their way to the top story and cant get out. I believe these pots are called Maryland commercial pots. Theyre pretty large, but you can pull enough crabs to make your fingers raw from a single pot if left overnight. In Georgia the current rips from the massive tide swings, so the pots are weighted with rebar on the bottom. Probably not necessary on the St John but maybe on the ICW.
Bait doesn't seem to matter as long as its fatty. I've used left over bbq, steak fat, managers special chicken thighs, turkey skin and bones... as long as it will produce a bit of grease in the water the crabs will come. One of the differences from the Dungeness fishing is once you've pulled the pot down here, the bait is rancid. The water temps around the PNW are cold enough not to spoil the bait. That was quite the shock the first time I pulled a pot and spilled rotten chicken water all over the cockpit. Now I try and dump the bait before bringing the pot onboard.
On species, the stone crab are the tastiest, but also the most elusive. We catch those in the summer when the temps are the hottest. I got a feeling you wont see any of those unless your much further south in the Keys or south Florida in Winter. You're asked to just take one of the claws so they can live to see another day and grow the claw back. I didnt know this the first time I caught one in Savannah and received a ration of scorn from folks that knew better. Its not a law but its a widely accepted practice. Blue crab are much more plentiful. When the water is warm, blue crab are extremely fast and have powerful claws. When I was learning, I tried to handle one the way I did Dungeness and learned a hard lesson. The crab pinched all the way through my thumb nail into the bone. The boat was a blood bath and Im sure people heard my yelping from miles away. Now this is my technique: After dumping the bait over the side, I bring the trap into the cockpit and have the lid of the cooler open. I open the door of the trap shake vigorously until all the crabs have fallen into the cooler on ice. After they've been in there for a 15 minutes or longer, they've gotten cold and they are now slow enough to handle like dungeness. Nows the time to throw the small ones overboard. There is little meat in even the big ones, so keeping the smaller ones is not worth it in my opinion. Im not sure the legality of bringing them into the cooler, but after having my thumb wrecked by one of these things, Ill take my chances with the fish cops. Im not sorting them until they've chilled out a little bit.
Hope this helps!
