Red Crabs

One of the many things I love about Baja Sur is the sheer diversity of marine life that has found and enthralled me since my first trip to Conception Bay.

The Bay Back in the Day...a magical place where literally everything came to spawn and feed...including some visitors from Up North. You went snorkeling/diving and when you put your head under the water the sealife noise sounded like a demolition derby.

These are photo 'captures' I took from an old movie camera I used to film a massive beaching of red crabs in Coyote Bay in the spring of 1987. It was utterly wild! There were literally millions and millions of the little red crabs in the waters and piled high on the shorelines.

They are commonly known in English as Pelagic Red Crab, Tuna Crab, or Lobster Krill.
Some local Baja names are… Langostilla, Langostino chileno

Pelagic Red Crab, (Pleuroncodes planipes, family Galathidae, if you’re still writing a thesis): These Pelagic Red Crabs are a very unique species that serves as a vital food source for a wide variety of marine life including the Humboldt squid, turtles, whales, and all sorts of fish.





The Pelagic Red Crab is found in the open ocean and on occasion is washed ashore during the spring months.

In Mexican waters, this creature is found predominately along the lower west coast of the Pacific side of the Baja California peninsula and in our Sea of Cortez south of the Midriff Islands, and ranges to about 125 miles south of Cabo San Lucas.

This crab species is believed to spend the majority of the year hiding in and around sandy bottoms. However, during the spring it travels in enormous dense schools, up to 10 individuals per square foot, that have been estimated to consist of up to 200 billion individual members weighing a total of 300,000 tons.
These schools attract a vast number of diverse predators. The Pelagic Red Crab is approximately 4 inches in length, with the shell measuring just over 1 inch. It swims backwards by flipping it tail and streamlining its legs. The Pelagic Red Crab feeds on planktonic bits of food.

The Pelagic Red Crab is utilized by the panga flotilla of commercial fishermen to catch red snappers, the prized Huachinango, out of deep holes by the bucket load; the snappers are only interested in live specimens and will not touch dead ones, making same day collection and maintenance a key for the successful use of this crab as a bait. The Pelagic Red Crab is also used to catch the Pacific Creolefish in large numbers on or near the surface on some occasions.

The pelagic red crab, also called "tuna crab.". These crabs sometimes form solid floating masses on the ocean surface and they are a preferred forage when available. In 1970, Ray Cannon wrote a column in Western Outdoor News about a huachinango surface frenzy stimulated by red crabs off San Jose del Cabo.

Sometimes they die and wash ashore by the millions, forming windrows hundreds of yards long, like the ones I videoed here in Coyote. At the time of my filming, all the beaches and shorelines from Conception Bay to south of Loreto were windrowed with the dead and dying mass. Truly one of Nature’s impressive events.

Below are some clear 35mm photos and also ‘captures’ of the video images.. but those somehow came out a little fuzzy. Hey, what can I say? Ron Palmas ruled that day.



When the masses were out in open water you could look down and see solid red, and also see huge red snapper trashing in and out of the schools….especially big splashes all around one renowned place…Roca Frijoles in Bahia de Concepcion. I tried casting a silver Krocodile spoon, but had no luck with a strike. I looked in my tackle box for something red or orange and found a Len Thompson potato bug I used for pike and walleyes Up North…a 4” orange spoon with black spots. I tied it on and cast…WHAMMO!..it was gone to something huge. Damn and Carumba! My buddy, Clemente, using line that could tie up the Queen Mary, horsed one to my gaff. A nice 45lber that was a prize for him to take home for dinner…or dinero. Back on shore, I had the camera so I gave it to him to take this photo of the fish. Lessons, lessons, amigo.



Once the crabs were washed up on the shore…surprisingly absolutely nothing would touch them. Not a gull, buzzard, Norwegian, or cow would eat them. They just accumulated by the jillions. Oddly, I did not notice any smell, although they were around for a couple days. Even my black lab, Gypsy, took a whiff and said No thanks. Little Brian from next door thought he’d try one, but he had second thoughts after sucking on one. Hey, I tried to stop him, but in reality it’s best he learns on his own!





The red windrows went all the way around the Bay. Lots of campers had to shovel a path through the crabs to reach the water. What a story they must have told back home!



A few days later…and a few high tides…and it was clean and smooth as usual. Gypsy and Brian went beachcombing again to check things out…eating things as they found them.

Never a dull day in Paradise.





[Edited on 10-24-2014 by Pompano]