Video: Crabby croc caught with pot: Fishers fight saltie for fresh crab catch

A group of Darwinites have proven their Territory credentials by going head to head with a croc for a catch of fresh crab.

A GROUP OF Darwinites have proven their Territory credentials by going head to head with a croc for a catch of fresh crab.

NT local Ebony Anderson told the NT News she was on a boat with a group of friends at Woods Inlet on Sunday, returning to crab pots they had placed earlier in the day, when at about 3m saltie “jumped up” ahead of them and grabbed a buoy to one of the pots that had been caught in a tree.

She said after debating among themselves whether to let the croc have the pot or try to get it back, they decided they wouldn’t be leaving without a fight.

“I went up to the front of the bow of the boat with a knife, and I was like ‘get me up between the crab pot and the croc and I’ll pick up the rope and cut it’,” she said.

“’We’ll take the crab pot and he can have the buoy’ – that was the plan.

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“We attempted to get the rope, but the croc was fuming.

“He was rolling and going down with his tail, and everyone was saying ‘get away from the bow, he’s going to jump onto the boat’.

“I was hanging over the front and I was saying ‘no, he’s fine’.

“But he wasn’t very happy, so I got back into the boat for a bit until he calmed down and went back to lying horizontal.

“In the end, I did manage to get the rope and cut it with a knife, but then I dropped both ends … so we had to scoop the rope out of the water. “He swam off with the buoy in his mouth.”

While the group succeeded in recovering the pot, Ms Anderson said the croc had had the last laugh.

“When we got the crab pot there was no crab in it, but there was a hole,” she said.

“Everyone thinks he ate the crab.”

A still from the video showing the croc grabbing hold of a crab pot buoy at Woods Inlet. Picture: Supplied

Despite coming face-to-face with a saltie, Ms Anderson said she hadn’t been too phased by the encounter.

“I felt fine afterwards,” she said. “I was very shaky, probably from adrenaline, but it was just hilarious. We were all laughing.”

“We wanted to eat crab that night, and I never like to leave fishing things in the water because I know how much that pollutes the ocean … so we weren’t going to leave until we got (the pot).”

“I’d do it again, any day.”