A few days back we were fishing in the middle of a Bay and staying outside and well away from the commercial crab trap floats we could see because of a bad experience in the past with losing gear. All of a sudden one rigger starts banging like it is draging although a quick glance tells us we are no where near bottom. The ball breaks off, steel cable goes slack even though the drag on the rigger was set to play out on hang up. Then the rods go off and the other rigger. Trying to bring up the other rigger results in it throwing a belt although we did not know that immediately. All of this happened in a few seconds. One of the rods cuts off as we move to turn the boat and back trace the other rod line and rigger braid back to the problem, Did manage to get the cover off and reset the belt and get the one ball back in. We traced the rod line back and looking down 4 feet under water are our two flashers around a double trap float. No way we could get down to it and just getting over it was difficult and wasted lots of time, so we marked it on the chartplotter and cut off the line and spent some time re-rigging gear and the rigger. This was not right at high tide but not too far off of it.
Decided to get up early the next day for the low tide and go back and see if we could find it and get back our flashers and lures. That took some time as it was very foggy but with the chartplotter we hunted it down in the fog and it was on the surface and we got back the two flashers and lures and wrote down the number on it and I have to say I was pissed.
If these guys are professionals, super moon big tide swing or not they should have had another 50 feet of line on that trap so as not to create a hazard to fishing and more critically to navigation. A small boat could have hit it under water and destroyed their leg or flipped the boat or knocked someone overboard and in a worse case situation, killed them. It was a heavy nylon anchor rope and I have to say siting there holding a serrated knife in the fog where no one could see me I was tempted to cut off their hazard to navigation floats and let them drag for their traps. I did not because they are just trying to make a living but on the other hand their improper setting of gear cost me a release clip, terminal gear and snubber and a 20lb ball and I want to be reimbursed. I have their commercial number that was on the floats. Floats on the surface are a pain, but floats underwater ...
Anyway to track them down from that number.
Decided to get up early the next day for the low tide and go back and see if we could find it and get back our flashers and lures. That took some time as it was very foggy but with the chartplotter we hunted it down in the fog and it was on the surface and we got back the two flashers and lures and wrote down the number on it and I have to say I was pissed.
If these guys are professionals, super moon big tide swing or not they should have had another 50 feet of line on that trap so as not to create a hazard to fishing and more critically to navigation. A small boat could have hit it under water and destroyed their leg or flipped the boat or knocked someone overboard and in a worse case situation, killed them. It was a heavy nylon anchor rope and I have to say siting there holding a serrated knife in the fog where no one could see me I was tempted to cut off their hazard to navigation floats and let them drag for their traps. I did not because they are just trying to make a living but on the other hand their improper setting of gear cost me a release clip, terminal gear and snubber and a 20lb ball and I want to be reimbursed. I have their commercial number that was on the floats. Floats on the surface are a pain, but floats underwater ...
Anyway to track them down from that number.
Last edited by a moderator:
