Commercial crab fisheries

Most commercial crab fishing operations in Queensland are small-scale businesses, and many licensed crab fishers are also licensed to work in the inshore net fishery. In Queensland, commercial crab fishers operate in 3 different fisheries: mud crab fishery, blue swimmer crab fishery, spanner crab fishery.

In the mud crab fishery, commercial fishers mostly use baited crab pots to obtain their catch. The blue swimmer crabs fishery mainly use baited collapsible pots and commercial spanner-crabbers are required to use dillies. Blue swimmers are also taken by prawn and scallop trawling fisheries. Each fishery has designated areas and times of operation. The spanner crab fishery is managed through a total allowable catch (TAC) quota and individual transferable quotas (ITQs).