Catching Crabs with scent only...

[Saba Slayer]

The guy's from Pautzke's gave me a sample of their Crab and Shrimp fuel to try at one of the fishing shows in March. (You trout fishermen remember them for using their little green capped bottles of salmon eggs.) They claimed that their "fuel" caught crabs up north without any bait...they piqued my interest, so I had to experiment with it myself.
We went out on Wednesday and managed to drop and retrieve two sets of 10 Ambush nets, a few scent only, and the rest with the scent poured on some mack filled bait cages before the wind picked up and the big swell got to the Pautzke guy's stomachs.
I soaked s few strips of chamois and some sponges in a ziplock baggie with the fuel for 24 hours then placed them in some Promar scent cups and clipped them to the bait ring on the Ambush nets
We caught a bunch of Crabs and a few in the scent only Ambush nets.
Here is a youtube video of the GoPro camera underwater on the scent only net.

The stuff seems to work pretty good...but you still need something (bait) in the net to keep the critters there.
With scent only, you need to pull your nets quite often to try and get the capture timing right so that you can pull something up in your net.
I'll try it at night on the lobsters/crabs as soon as I can and I'll get back with a report.
Jim / Saba Slayer