Much more menacing looking than he is. In the warmer months, fiddler crabs spend time above ground foraging. They live in grasses area next to the water. On Amelia Island, the best place to find them is along the Intracoastal waterway. Look for holes about the size of a dime, this is their home. They will be near a hole and don’t like you at all. They will quickly move back into their hole as you approach. Speed is the name of the game. Place your hand over the crab pinning it to the ground before it makes it back to a hole. Then quickly drop it in your bucket. To completely prevent pinches gloves can be worn.
In the colder months, the holes are there but there are no crabs above ground. A shovel should be used to dig the crabs out. They are less than a foot deep. Just dig to the side of their hole and dump the sand onto the ground. If a crab is in the mix he will scurry away. Use the same technique described above to capture the crab and place him in a bucket.
Keeping crabs alive is pretty easy. Put a couple of inches of sand in the bottom of your bucket. Put seawater into the bucket but do not cover the sand. When you get home tilt the bucket to one side so that the water is above the sand on the low side. This will give the crabs access to water and also sand which contains their food source. They do not live in the water so make sure there is exposed sand.