If you’ve ever eaten yabbies before you’ll know just how good they taste….really sweet, delicate flesh. People describe it as sweeter than prawn and more delicate than lobster….and I’d have to agree with that.

Most seasoned anglers who chase Murray cod, Yellow belly, silver perch and Redfin will tell you that yabbies also make a great bait…and it mostly keeps the carp away as well.

As a kid I used to catch yabbies for fun, we’d eat the big ones and use the small ones for bait.

Catching them was simple. Just tie a piece of meat on a bit of string, leave it in the water for a while then pull it in and net the yabby holding on to the meat. We never got tired of doing this.

In recent times different nets and bait traps can be bought for catching yabbies and these work well….and the meat on a piece of string works well too…

…So if you have kids and want to try the simplest type of fishing or you’re all grown up and want to catch a feed of some high quality fish then catching yabbies is worth a try!

Yabbies are most active in the warm weather. They hibernate in the cold so you won’t catch them then….that’s when Murray crays come out so you can chase them in winter.

The yabby diet is largely plant based but they also love meat when they can get it. Anyone fishing country Victoria will know that yabbies love worms. Sometimes it’s hard to fish with worms when there’s yabbies in the area. They quickly eat your bait after you cast in….and you never know they’re doing it till you reel in and find an empty hook. The only good thing about this is you know the yabbies are there and you can target them….so you don’t go home empty handed!

Yabbies really like blood filled meat. An old angler I knew who lived in northern Victoria, would pick up fresh kangaroo road kill for his yabby fishing. He said the dark meat was the best for bait and he could prove it with the number of yabbies he caught.

Whatever meat you use, try to select the stuff that has the least fat. A big white piece of fat on a bit of red meat can make it float, not only that but the taste is less attractive to yabbies. “Red is best”!

If you go “old school” and use the meat and string method, cut the meat into small cubes. Try to avoid leaving stringy dangling ends as the yabbies can pull these off and escape when you try to net them.

Tie the meat by wrapping the sting around it a few times and tying a reasonably tight knot that bites into the flesh. You want a tight hold otherwise the yabbies pull the meat off.

The length of the piece of string depends on the depth of the water but most of the time yabbies will be in the shallows so 1 to 2 metres will be fine.

Yabbies burrow in the sides of the banks, under logs and other structures. They come out when hungry and their sense of smell is geared to finding small amounts of food in lots of water. If you come to a waterway that has holes in the sides of the banks, you know the yabbies will be there. The openings of the holes are the size of a 50-cent piece and when the water is low, you’ll see them.

To get the best out of a session use a number of yabby lines. Spread them out so you attract yabbies from different areas….this will get a bigger supply than fishing in one small spot.

You’ll need a small net with a 1 to 2 metre long handle. You can find these in fishing tackle stores and cheaper models in $2 shops and discount stores.

The most important thing in catching yabbies is locating a good waterway with a good stock. The second most important thing is knowing how to pull them in to net them. Yabbies hold onto the meat and usually don’t give up easily. They’ll let you drag them in, if you do it slowly, and will hold on while you lift them off the bottom to net them.

Yabbies seem to hold on longer if you drag them towards your net rather than lift them too early. If you use a long string and they pull it out a long way, it can take a bit of time to slowly pull them in, centimetre by centimetre. At times, you’ll feel them jerking hard on the string. This is where they are flicking their tails to swim away with the meat.

If the yabbies are proving hard to catch, it’s best to let them take a bit of line when they do this so they feel they are winning a bit. It seems to give them confidence and they will hold on a bit harder.

If you go to a water that is fished a lot –  the Yabbies will be a bit more nervous. They will often swim off when they see the net or you….or when they get close to the surface of the water. So the best netting technique is to keep the net out of sight until you lift them up far enough to get it under them but before they can clearly see you.

If more modern methods are your “thing” then you can buy bait cages and hoop nets from fishing tackle stores and online. These are effective if you want to just throw them in and wait.

Hoop nets are just 2 metal hoops tied with netting so they lie flat on the bottom when dropped in the water but form a bowl shape when you lift them…and catch the yabbies inside. If you use hoop nets don’t wait too long after you throw them in to check them otherwise the yabbies will walk away with your meat.

The other thing about hoop nets is they are open. The yabbies just walk in and can walk out when they want to. If you lift them too often the yabbies seem to stop coming. If you lift them infrequently, the yabbies may have already been…and left.

A bit of experience will get you into the right timing for checking them.

Another option is bait traps. These are just square wire frames covered in mesh. They have funnel like entrance holes at either end. These funnels make it easy for the yabbies to find their way but a lot harder to find their way out.

The great thing about bait traps is they’re a bit of a “set and forget” method. You toss them in and the yabbies catch themselves. They don’t often escape so you don’t have to check them all the time….they also catch other things like shrimp and small fish.

There is no size limit on yabbies in Victoria. The Victorian Fisheries website has information on bag limits and the numbers of lines and traps you can have. You can find details here.  One important point is that females with “berries” ie. eggs must be returned to the water.

So yabbies make good bait…and taste great. You can take the active approach and go with meat and string or you can try the hoop or trap method. No matter what, chasing yabbies is a bit of fun and if you get a few big ones- they make real good eating!