Takin ya chances I recon, property owners in WA would not be to happy about that, some nice ones there tho.

pirrad said...

Life's full of taking chances,if i didn't take em someone else would've.
[its half the fun]

thats true dosent mean thay were yours for the taking tho..... hell who am i kidding thay look yummm

bloody poachers, we used to have a beautifully stocked dam, couple of times a year we had a fest of yabbies. Then the poachers started coming, ignoring the breading season and sure enough, very few ever since.

Pirrad, what you have done is theft. You cant be to bright if you are advertising the fact either.

I don't know yabbie laws.

I do know several folks have reported the post for posting "illegal activity".

If indeed, it is illegal, and it's removed, what has that achieved? Zip. So, I'm leaving it here for further discussion, under the idea that it will have educational value...

Play fair...

taking stock and/or produce off private property is stealing and is a criminal offense
i cant quote the w.a. act that it falls under but from my experience and dialog with the livestock squad after having 15k worth of livestock stolen i do know there are laws to protect the landowners. the subject of aquaculture came into the conversation with one of the detectives as i own and operated a marron property although my theft was related to cattle.

the detective mentioned how aquaculture theft was "killing the industry" by the amount of poaching going on in some areas of the state.

the ones in the image are yabbies and they breed all year round , they are mostly found in farm dams and for the vast majority of land owners are not part of the farms cash flow, just a treat. yabbies need to be harvested quite aggressive or else the catches are heavily numbered but small in yabie size. most dams that become barren of yabbies is caused by chemical spray drifts or algal blooms not from over harvesting.

i don't have an issue with pirrad and his poached yabbies, i have a mate who farm and the dams close to the main road sometime turn up free yabbie catch nets for them to use.. so it works both ways

had theses been marron which are totally different to the yabbies species found in most dams my opinion would be far different and that i would hope for you to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.[}:)]

I thought marron was a WA phrase and yabbie sa/vic term?

A friend of mines Dad farms marron have said in the past that poaching is rife, has a shotgun and it gets used on a regular basis (not at people but just to scare them off)

Hi Steve

Where did you catch them ?. Lake Hart ?

Nice catch. That big one looks like a contender for a caption competition.

doggie said...

I thought marron was a WA phrase and yabbie sa/vic term?

Yabbies is the eastern states name for gilgies in WA, (pronounced Jillgees. g as in golf), although with the huge influx of eastern states people over the last 40 years, "gilgies" seems to be giving way to the name "Yabbies". I don't hear the name gilgies used much now. WHich is a bit of a shame because they really do look like gilgies rather than yabbies.
They are usually quite dark blacky blue colour, except when they're cooked, when they turn a light red color. They are really delicious with a much more delicate taste than crayfish.
As far as I know there is no gilgie season and if you find them you can catch them, provided they are in public drains or soaks. They live in drains, soaks, small farm dams etc.
Even when the drain is dry they survive by burrowing underground and re appear when the water comes back.


Marron are a small freshwater crayfish native to the south west of WA. There are strict marron seasons and size and bag limits. Some areas are off limits. They taste nice too.

Couple of quick points on Yabbie breading (Vic and NSW at least, no idea about what they do further west or north);
- They dont bread all year, water temp must be above 15 and really around 20.
- Breeding cycle is about 40-50 days and I found pretty cyclic in our dams.
- Below about 15 degrees, they are pretty much in hybernation, meaning they risk being cleaned out of a dam if caught early or late winter (middle of winter you prob wont get any as they are in holes having sleeping parties)

Oh, and anyone who takes yabbies from someones dam without asking is a bloody mug. Most people would just say go for your life unless the dam had recently been harvested. Public rivers, dams etc check with fisheries for any limits.