The crabbing at Stanage Bay has been great, there’s no other word for it! The rainfall and floods last year and the follow up rain has kept our monsters potting.

Please remember to throw back the empty crabs. They don’t take long to fill up with delicious white meat; only about three weeks from jelly to hard. To know if the buck (don’t take females) is full, feel under the claws on the carapace/body and beside the flap with your thumb. If the shell is hard, keep it; if not, throw it back.

The estuary fishing has been a bit on the slow side with huge 6.1m+ tides, however at the low and the high tide with no run happening, some fishers have been able to fill their quota. Nice catches of grunter and still the odd jewfish and cod have made it to the ice box.

Off the islands and in between, the island’s bag limits have been reached with grassy sweetlip and red jew. For the lucky ones they even managed to put on board some decent red emperor. I can’t wait until our big tub is ready for the reef.

The road into Stanage Bay is fantastic now the grading is all over. However, it’s a little too good as users are forgetting to travel to the conditions. The road is still only gravel, so the bends and corners can be a trap to new comers. We have already had the rescue chopper and ambulance called in to take injured people in a roll over to hospital, so please, slow down.

Stanage Bay is a small fishing tourist commercial village with only one road in and out, one boat ramp, one pub/servo, one tackle shop and the Coastguard. The camping area is mowed by local volunteers, in fact every thing done here is by local ageing volunteers. So for all visitors, please give us a break and dispose of your rubbish properly. We have a free 24hour dump/refuse tip, so stop leaving your garbage for locals to clean up. The local coastguard raises money collecting the empty aluminium cans and there are bags supplied at each rental property, boat ramp parking area and at the dump, so when you bring up you beverages think twice before buying glass for the trip. Thank you.

Call into Stanage Bay Marine and accommodation at the tackle shop in the boat yard and I can give you a fact sheet on the area.