How to Make Crab Mesh Ring Traps

Instead of paying a high price for crabs, make a net and catch them yourself.

While crab mesh rings are not expensive to purchase, making them can be a fun time for you and the family. When planning your vacation to a known crabbing spot, make up several of these mesh rings for catching crabs. These provide hours and hours of fun on a sunny day or a pleasant evening. Before crabbing, check with the laws of the state where you are. Many states have regulations on the size of the crabs you can keep. Most states do not allow people to keep females with egg sacks attached.

Things You'll Need

• Heavy gauge wire
• Wire snips
• Crimp
• Netting (no more than 1-inch holes)
• Scissors
• Needle
• Heavy-duty nylon thread
• ¼-inch cording

Instructions

1. Cut two pieces of the wire to 20 inches and 10 inches. Use the wire snips as the wire is too thick for cutting with scissors.

2. Make a ring out of one of the lengths of wire. Overlap the ends about 2 inches. Twist the overlapping ends to hold them together. Use a crimping tool to make sure that the ends do not come untwisted.

3. Repeat Step 2 with the other length of wire.

4. Cut your netting so that it is 10 ½ inches long. Taper it so that the top of the netting measures 20 inches and the bottom edge measure 10 inches.

5. Use the needle and thread to stitch the sides of the netting together to form a tube. Overlap the netting 1 inch and roll up the excess. Stitch around the rolled up part to make sure the netting is secure.

6. Drape the wider part of the netting around the larger wire ring. The netting should fit over the ring. Stitch the netting to the ring. Repeat with the narrower edge of the netting and the smaller ring.

7. Cut another piece of netting to a 10-inch circle. Fit this circle to the bottom edge of the mesh crab ring. Overlap the netting over the wire ring and stitch in place to create a bottom for your trap.

8. Cut three 12-inch lengths of the cording. Evenly space these out along the top ring of the trap. Tie them onto the ring, tightly knotting them. Tie the other ends of the strings together.

9. Take one more length of cording, about 6 feet long, and attach one end to the spot where the three other strings connect. This is your excess that allows you to throw the trap into the water, tie it to the pier or a boat and then retrieve when you think you have caught a crab.

Tips & Warnings

• If you cannot find netting on a roll or at your local fabric store, you can use old netting you have around your house. Perhaps you own a no-longer-usable hammock. Use the netting from the hammock to make your crab rings.

• When pulling the crab traps back up, pull slowly. You might want to have another person standing ready with a long-handled net to grab the crab. Sometimes when the mesh ring traps reach the surface of the water, the crabs are able to escape.

References

• Blue Crab: Crabbing for Hard Shell Crabs