BigBendFishing.Net

Picked up a keeper Cobia on Fathers Day. He had these in his stomach along with a number of crabs. Are these bulldozers or something different? Someone should make an artificial that looks like this!

Mantis Shrimp!

LOOKS LIKE A NUKE ZAPPED SAND FLEA TO ME, BOY, THOSE ARE HUGE.
PA THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

Mantis shrimp.

If you ever run across a live one, you do not want to be poking at it with your fingers.

Unless, of course, you happen to have fingers you don't like.

It will shred your fingers. Commercial guys do not like them.

There are two hunting categories, the "spearers" and the "smashers". The "spearers" use their spear-like claw to silently stab soft tissued prey. The "smashers" use their forceful, club-like claw to hit, crack open or pulverize harder bodied prey. It is interesting that the power of the "smashers" appendage can produce a blow close to the power of a .22 caliber bullet and are notoriously known as "thumb splitters". It is rumored that because of the tremendous strength these animals have, they can crack aquarium glass. From a story about how a pet Mantis Shrimp broke 1/4 inch aquarium glass, that was posted in The Daily Mirror (a British Newspaper) on Friday, April 10, 1998, page 11, this documentation leads us to believe that this is possible.

2true wrote:There are two hunting categories, the "spearers" and the "smashers". The "spearers" use their spear-like claw to silently stab soft tissued prey. The "smashers" use their forceful, club-like claw to hit, crack open or pulverize harder bodied prey. It is interesting that the power of the "smashers" appendage can produce a blow close to the power of a .22 caliber bullet and are notoriously known as "thumb splitters". It is rumored that because of the tremendous strength these animals have, they can crack aquarium glass. From a story about how a pet Mantis Shrimp broke 1/4 inch aquarium glass, that was posted in The Daily Mirror (a British Newspaper) on Friday, April 10, 1998, page 11, this documentation leads us to believe that this is possible.

...interesting. Never heard of 'Mantis Shrimp' until now. Are they a typical species of shrimp to these waters...?

They're not really shrimp, but in the order of stomatopoda. Shrimp are decapoda.

There's about 400-500 species, spread world wide. The ones around here I don't recall ever seeing up in shallow water, like on the flats. I think they prefer deeper water and hard surfaced structure with a lot of hidey-holes.

If you get one big enough, they're pretty good to eat. More like a lobster than a shrimp, but use caution handling them. Compared to a bluecrab, a mantis shrimp is capable of inflicting damage way out of proportion to it's size.

I catch those things all the time when pulling my bait net for shrimp/croakers....usually about 3-4" long, not quite as large as the ones above...sure are evil looking critters

what kind of bait net setup do you use?

Trawl nets. I've got one that's 8' long and about 8' wide, and another which i pull more often that is 16' long and about 10' wide i guess.....both set ups are a miniature model like you would see on a shrimp boat. One large board on each side of the net, a dragger chain going across the middle to make the shrimp 'jump up'. They're messy as h@ll to use but will save alot of $$$ when can find the bait.