Conger float fishing

Has anyone ever tried float fishing for conger.
When dropping the bait straight down a harbour wall more often than not the crabs will mangle my bait before anything else gets a chance. I was thinking that if the tides slack and there’s is little water movement I might try using a float to suspend the bait about a foot off the bottom to try to keep the crabs off it.
Or even have a weight tight on the bottom to keep it static and use the float to suspend the bait just off the bottom.

Has anyone ever tried this or does anyone have any opinions?

crabs wont stop a conger from taking a bait

Save yourself the trouble mate. Just use a normal pully or a running ledger rig and use a big bait. That way you wont need to check or change it so often. But its always good to get fresh scent in the water anyway. And some crabs can swim so the bait wont be guaranteed safe even off the bottom !

thanks for the responses

i agree its not a great idea, would probably end up losing the lot to a snag as well