Bait... well there are quite a few thing to use as bait when you are shrimping and crabbing. My personal favorate is a nice fresh salmon head. But I unfortunatly dont always have thoes around. When nasty seals are preasent I recomend the use of canned sardines. A hungry seal will not pass up a free meal of a fresh fish head and he just migh tear up your trap taking it off. Just punch holes in the can with a screwdriver and wire the can to the bottom of the trap. Seals dont seem to bother with canned sardines. Some people with crab traps use chicken and It works rather well although I have never used it. I also hear that canned cat food work good too. But why pay $1 for cat food or sardines when a fish head works fine. The fish market at the end of beacon sells heads and scrap fish to all us shrimpers for 25c. A nice big sole that has been cleaned of the meat makes great bait. It cover the whole bottom of the trap and is easy to wire down.
good luck
Once you have your bait wired onto your net lower it down off the dock into until it hits the bottom . Tie up any extra rope and sit back. If you are fishing more that one net this is a good time to bait and lower the second net. Now wait 5-10 min if you can he he and then pull up the net. DO NOT STOP PULLING once you started or every thing will crawl off. Its a good idea to have a nice 5 gallon bucket around with a little bit of sea water in it. Pick off the shrip and put them in the bucket have a seperat bucket for any good size crab. The crab will eat the shrimp :-) . Throw back the smaller shrimp and the crabs that are too small as well as its a good idea to throw back the female crabs to ensure future crabing. Thoes suckers lay like a million eggs so throw em back. Check the reg book to see the differance between male and female crabs. Im not going their.