Lobster pot lines Warning

Seajet

Seajet

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I think this is worth repeating here; as one is not supposed to duplicate posts, I'm posting it but we have 'Wotayottie' to thank for bring it to our attention.

He's reasonably confident the fisherman concerned meant it seriously; while I'm sure this is rare or hopefully unique, it's worth bearing in mind as carelessly laid badly marked pots are enough of a menace already !

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" Bored whilst waiting for a weather window, I wandered along the pontoon and started chatting with the skipper of a small pot boat. Told me he had a problem with people raising his pots and nicking the contents so one of his tricks was to embed razor blades in the pot rope. So what happens if a yottie like me gets a rope round his prop then, I asked. You **** shouldnt be sailing where I put my pots was the reply. "
 
Lobster pots

Yes they can be a real problem around here. Years back we had a TV show called "Towards 2000" they described an invention where a lobster pot had a coiled up rope attached to the pot. I coded trigger signal was sent from the fishing boat by ultrasonics to activate release of the rope and float up to the surface. Only when the owner wanted to lift the pot. It seemed such an elegant solution to theft of contents and boats becoming fouled in ropes. But sadly the idea was never heard of again. couldn't get the Chinese to make it for decent price I suppose. Or are fishermen too thick to take on technology. olewill
 
More technology on the average fishing boat than you would imagine then. Please dont call me and my colleagues thick, it hardly helps foster relations between users of the sea. If we want a sensible resolution to this problem we have to think of something ourselves, or do you want to leave it up to Brussels to inflict a solution??

I know the weather has been **** this summer, but the ill will between forumites over the last few days is getting silly...
 
simon barefoot said:
More technology on the average fishing boat than you would imagine then. Please dont call me and my colleagues thick, it hardly helps foster relations between users of the sea. If we want a sensible resolution to this problem we have to think of something ourselves, or do you want to leave it up to Brussels to inflict a solution??

I know the weather has been **** this summer, but the ill will between forumites over the last few days is getting silly...
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I'm with with you, we now have only one full time creel boat in our village, operated by a very hard working father and son, real seamen. I respect their activity and the quality of the prawns they catch and in a decision of who is entitled to use our loch I am happy to give them priority.
How else would I keep my missus involved if it was not for spotting and steering around pot buoys.
 
I'd hazard a guess that embedding razor blades in the pot lines, then getting it wrapped round the prop and subsequently slashing your hand removing it opens up a massive avenue for litigation. If you could find out whose it was, of course.
 
Seajet said:
I think this is worth repeating here; as one is not supposed to duplicate posts, I'm posting it but we have 'Wotayottie' to thank for bring it to our attention.

He's reasonably confident the fisherman concerned meant it seriously; while I'm sure this is rare or hopefully unique, it's worth bearing in mind as carelessly laid badly marked pots are enough of a menace already !

---
" Bored whilst waiting for a weather window, I wandered along the pontoon and started chatting with the skipper of a small pot boat. Told me he had a problem with people raising his pots and nicking the contents so one of his tricks was to embed razor blades in the pot rope. So what happens if a yottie like me gets a rope round his prop then, I asked. You **** shouldnt be sailing where I put my pots was the reply. "
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Hahaha seems a little cruel and unusual to me, but hey everyone is going to react to that differently.
 
William_H said:
Yes they can be a real problem around here. Years back we had a TV show called "Towards 2000" they described an invention where a lobster pot had a coiled up rope attached to the pot. I coded trigger signal was sent from the fishing boat by ultrasonics to activate release of the rope and float up to the surface. Only when the owner wanted to lift the pot. It seemed such an elegant solution to theft of contents and boats becoming fouled in ropes. But sadly the idea was never heard of again. couldn't get the Chinese to make it for decent price I suppose. Or are fishermen too thick to take on technology. olewill
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This sounds like a brilliantly simple idea.
 
I would have thought putting razor blades on a pot line about the same as connecting the mains to your door handle to keep thieves out: intent to cause harm.

I have to say, neither I nor the Lifeboat crew who had to come and tow me in were too unhappy at the huge hole we cut in the unmarked net set just below the surface across a popular Solent anchorage a few years back. Only time in 50 years sailing I have needed the services of the RNLI.
 
simon barefoot said:
More technology on the average fishing boat than you would imagine then. Please dont call me and my colleagues thick, it hardly helps foster relations between users of the sea. If we want a sensible resolution to this problem we have to think of something ourselves, or do you want to leave it up to Brussels to inflict a solution??
Click to expand...

Why don't fishermen mark their pots properly? Surely it doesn't need thinking about, it just needs doing? It would do a lot to improve relations with other people.
 
off clacton and walton badly marked pots are a real menace. there's a definite distinction between proper markers and old squash bottles so two types of fishermen are operating.

no problem at all with the properly marked ones - professionals earning a living so good luck to them.
 
Rigger Mortice said:
Why don't fishermen mark their pots properly? Surely it doesn't need thinking about, it just needs doing? It would do a lot to improve relations with other people.
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Around here they do, some creel boats are not that big but I do not know of one that uses buoys much less than 500mm dia. They need to be able to find them in bad weather?
Very occasionally nowadays you see a 5 litre plastic oil container or an old fender but they usually mark single pots laid by half interested amateurs who probably only bait them once a fortnight and wonder why they never catch anything. It is a much rarer sight today than 20 years ago. Some of the yachts passing by have a couple of pots on the deck, they do not seem to have pot buoys as well.
 
Razor blades?-there you are pot hauling;coiling the lines;emptying the pots;stacking the pots.You are going to get your hands cut to ribbons by the razor blades and come off worse than the thief..
Just sounds a bit far fetched to me.
 
ffiill said:
Just sounds a bit far fetched to me.
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.......and I suspect story planted to put off people interfering with his pots.
In my part of the world, fishermen have to get to their gear in all weathers so it is invariably well marked - and they have a livlihood to make.

As for the technology described earlier, not many of you would be happy chucking £70 over the side repeatedly in the faint hope that a bit of electronic gimmicry is going to return it to your bosom.
 
Quandary said:
Around here they do, some creel boats are not that big but I do not know of one that uses buoys much less than 500mm dia. They need to be able to find them in bad weather?
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You're lucky. In my part of the world there are lots (50%?..wild guess) with inadequate buoys and very few (5%?) marked with a flag and pole.

I think that part of the problem is that the casual fisherman doesn't bother going out in bad weather. When he does go out a GPS will get him near enough to find his half submerged plastic bottle.
 
Wotayottie was asked if the fisherman telling him about the razor blades was winding him up; he thinks not.

Even a large pot marker buoy is useless and still dangerous at night, but of course the fishermen don't operate at night and don't care about those who do.

I suspect it will take legislation and enforcement, but surely the only real answer is danbuoys with at least reflective material, if not some sort of solar charged light, as in garden lights ?

Pots are laid in the Portland Race inshore passage where the current pulls them just underwater, which I think criminal; a boat pinned by the stern there could easily be overwhelmed.

An example of the careless attitude of fishermen is the line of dark blue ex - DIY store plastic cans on the direct line between Chichester West Pole entrance beacon and the Dolphin passage.

I asked 'Fisherman' of these forums about this problem, he stated - as suspected earlier in these posts - that there is a sub-breed of unlicensed amateur types who are particularly inconsiderate, these are people just trying to provide lobsters for their mates' pub...

I am lucky in that my boat has an engine in a well so if the engine was in and got caught I should be able to part lift the motor and apply an old breadknife I keep handy; I shudder when I think of another boat I had with a saildrive and no cutter.

If I had a boat with an inboard I'd make a bee line for a garden centre / DIY store and get one of those long handled pruning jobs; some have a serrated blade on the outside edge which I'd think useful.
 
Perhaps I am just complacent but in forty odd years of sailing, much of it overnight racing in coastal water I have never fouled our boat on a pot buoy. The only time I experienced a fouled prop was in E. Loch Tarbert harbour and the buoy was one of those litle pick ups laid by the harbour master using blue floating polypropylene line, as an anchor pick up for the outside boat on the long trots of twenty boats that they had when the Scottish series was a much bigger event than these days (we used to have an entry of forty Sigma 33s moored each night in two long trots, very sociable). I can not recall coming across a yacht fouled on a pot line either or heard an emergency call about it on vhf so I suspect it is not a great problem in Northern waters. We did sail straight in to one we failed to spot earlier this summer and it did make quite a smack on the keel before emerging behind us.
However if it is so bad down south I would not object to a regulation defining the size of pot markers and allowing sub standard buoys and the gear attached to them to be removed as jetsam. That should not damage the living of the commercial creel men.
 
Seajet said:
Even a large pot marker buoy is useless and still dangerous at night, but of course the fishermen don't operate at night and don't care about those who do.
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Not so. Surely bigger the better? Here a small weight is attached a few fathoms from the surface which keeps any slack well down. Those of you who have come through Lochalsh and the Inner Sound will have encountered a profusion of markers and incidents of prop fouling are virtually unheard of.
By way of perspective there are some 40 boats working pots in the Inner Sound and each of these has between 800 and 3000 pots apiece usually worked in fleets(strings) of 40 - 100; and fishermen work at night and do care about others.


[/QUOTE]I asked 'Fisherman' of these forums about this problem, he stated - as suspected earlier in these posts - that there is a sub-breed of unlicensed amateur types who are particularly inconsiderate, these are people just trying to provide lobsters for their mates' pub... [/QUOTE]

That would appear to be the case in your locality.There is sufficient legislation in place to deal with this but insufficient resources to enforce it. It is not a reason for open season on fishermen by the leisured community
 
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