5" Cull Stick for Louisiana Crabbers

Louisiana's commercial hard crab minimum is 5", point to point across the spines, and the immature female rule adds a second check on every crab. That's two decisions per crab, on the biggest crab fishery in the country, on boats that mostly land under 5,000 pounds a year and can't afford to give any of it back.

Why plastic reads short

The plastic cull sticks sold at every supply house are cut about a sixteenth under 5" on purpose. Crab shell wears the notch open, so the maker starts it short and lets it wear toward true. Early in its life it passes shorts. Late, it throws back keepers. Somewhere in the middle it's right, and you don't know when.

On a 5" day a stick that reads 4-15/16" is putting shorts in the basket. LDWF measures with a gauge, not your stick.

The 5" aluminum stick

Machined from solid 5/8" 6061 aluminum bar, gauge held to .005". Reads 5" the day it lands and 5" three seasons later. Crab points don't wear aluminum. Bolts to the culling board, left or right handed, both hands free for crabs.

5" cull stick, $55, free shipping. Same bar is also cut at 5-1/4" and 4-1/2" for other states.

Grading notches

The bar also carries notches at 5-3/4" and 6", so you're sorting ones and jumbos off the same stick you cull with. Louisiana buyers grade by size like everyone else; ask yours where the breaks are and grade to the notch. A 6" jimmy in the number-two basket is dockside price you already caught.

The immature female check

Since 2017, commercial harvest of immature females is prohibited in Louisiana, with a 2% incidental tolerance and an exception for crabs held for softshell processing. Immature females have a triangular apron, the V-bottom or "maiden"; mature females have a dome. The stick doesn't tell you that; your eye does. But the stick handles the 5" question so your eye only has one job.