One of the most popular forms of bait used on the central and southern coasts, the Yabby is a prawn-like crustacean living in burrows over the estuarine sand-flats. Amateur anglers generally employ a manual coring pump with a plunger( the ubiquitous "yabby pump") sucking up Yabbies in a watery sludge. The number of Yabby-holes over a flat often conveys a misleading impression of the density of these animals, for each adult Yabby may have three surface holes communicating with its main burrow, the walls of which are smoothed and compacted by its movements. This burrow often descends to 600 mm and expands at intervals to wider chambers so that the Yabby can reverse direction.

The adult male has one enormously-developed claw which is capable of giving a rather sharp nip; this feature is less well developed in the adult female, who may carry 2,000 eggs in a cluster under her abdomen. Yabbies feed by straining out organic matter from the sand into which they have burrowed.

The Ghost Nipper is excellent bait for Bream, Whiting, Flathead, and other estuarine fish species. A small crustacean growing to a total length of about 75 mm, it is threaded tail-first and alive on to the hook; in order to keep the Yabbies active and in good condition, the water of their container should be changed at regular and frequent intervals and should be kept cool by protecting it from the sun's heat. The water should be deep enough to just cover the yabbies. A good idea is to make a sieve by drilling holes in the bottom of a plastic ice cream container, place the yabbies in this in a bucket of water just covering the yabbies. In this way they can be lifted out easily to replace the water at regular intervals. Also detritus and other material falls through the sieve helping to keep the yabbies alive longer.

Updated:Wednesday, 17 October 2007