crabs as bait - to halve or not

Question: what's the optimal way to present crabs (peeler) as bait? I read somewhere to cut them in half, but 'em on a hook with shirring elastic and off you go. But doesn't that look completely unnatural? Wouldn't a whole crab be better?

Or is the assumption that the species you're after hunt by smell anyway, by night (smoothies, bass, etc) so a half crab makes no difference....

Btw, I had a discussion on the beach over the weekend with a lad who mentioned there was a special crab bait hook? Some kind of a kinked hook? Anyone know?

Found this on youtube a while back its quite good.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=ImGT-8nFR2o

excellent reference. thanks for pointing that out.

Yeah no worries. The lad that uploaded that has a load of videos that are good. Check out the one where he catches an electric eel not knowing what it is