Lobster Pots

[Bajansailor]

their speciality is moored semi-floating "fish attractors" which can be in surprisingly deep water and up to 50 miles offshore.

We have stuff like this as well, although here the Ministry of Fisheries calls them 'Fish Aggregating Devices' (or FAD's for short), perhaps in an attempt to make them more appealing (?).
Fishing Gear: Fish Aggregating Devices
Our Ministry of Fisheries recently commissioned a local boat builder to build about 20 of them - they are about 12' in diameter and built of fibreglass, and are moored up to 20 miles off the coast here.
The smaller fishing boats regard them as a convenient place to moor to, to do their fishing.... and I don't think that lights last very long on them.
Some years ago we nearly hit a large un-lit FAD on a very dark night moored a few miles off the west coast of Guadeloupe - we only saw it at the last minute, and managed to avoid it.

 

[Seven Spades]

Legislation to enforce the use of flags and marking of fishing gear is easy to enforce. The local port woudl only need to go out once or twice and lift all the non-compliant pots and the fishermen would just mark them straight away.

Having your pot lifted, emptied and then confiscated is enough to make the fishermen comply.

 

[Gsailor]

A moan.
I counted 10 at mouth of river Yealm within about a 50yds area, most white or blue plastic containers.
Are there regulations about these - do you have be licensed, and rules on numbers etc ?

I'd suggest a new law - if you don't have one with a flag on a stick (preferably with a solar-powed light), then anyone is allowed (encouraged) to pull it up and take the lobster for dinner

I was fishing once with a new lure (in the Channel Islands) and blow me if I didn’t cast onto the only buoy marking a lobster pot.

Line snapped so I swam out - it was cold - and retrieved lute (I am that tight).

Never caught a bass and the lobster pot was really heavy (curiosity made me try to lift it) - no wonder they have winches.

Agree all pots should be marked.

It should be a law in fact inmho.

 

[fisherman]

The authorities ie, IFCA can and do confiscate illegal nets. It would be very simple to introduce legislation over id for pots, although minimum marking protocols might be troublesome. Then any non compliant gear would be taken ashore and the owner invited to collect, and get a formal warning. There are so many illegal fishermen that they would not collect if prosecution was a consequence, but proving the fish or lobster, crab, was going to be sold, which is what's illegal, is difficult. So on the one hand they have to catch illicit work at sea, on the other catch them at the pub back door. They have been known to go through the pub freezer.
Last night I was offered bass, at the local chippy, so fresh as it was "caught by a member of our staff". Totally illegal, unless the staff is a registered fisherman.

 

[Aja]

Try sailing at night off the Phillipines: their speciality is moored semi-floating "fish attractors" which can be in surprisingly deep water and up to 50 miles offshore. Anything from an old large steel freezer upwards moored usually on old steel cables. Some are complete palm trees, which at least are less damaging to hit than a large almost submerged steel object. Never seen one lit.

Been up and down the Malacca Straits a few times from Singapore to Langkawi and you soon get used to the lonely fisherman who will switch on a torch in the middle of nowhere if you approach to close....

They also like pulsating strings of LEDs in different colours which is unnerving at first.

 

[capnsensible]

Once you leave European waters, it all changes, doesn't it?

Moroccan fishermen are very inventive with colours, sequences and directions when lighting up fishing nets, etc. I think the only colours I've not seen yet are tartan....

 

[Aja]

Legislation to enforce the use of flags and marking of fishing gear is easy to enforce. The local port woudl only need to go out once or twice and lift all the non-compliant pots and the fishermen would just mark them straight away.

Having your pot lifted, emptied and then confiscated is enough to make the fishermen comply.

Can't see this being enforced in the Hebrides. The nearest 'local port' would be many miles away.

 

[dunedin]

Can't see this being enforced in the Hebrides. The nearest 'local port' would be many miles away.

That is indeed the issue with the new Scottish pot buoy marking laws. As far as I am aware there has been zero enforcement

 

[geem]

Lots of pot markers I saw in the west Indies seemed to be owned by cocacola and shelloil

We are currently anchored in Grande Anse, Martinique. The number of pots 'marked' with clear one litre water bottles is crazy. Hundreds of them. The bay is a marked anchorage, but pots are all over with so many at the mouth of the bay it was almost impossible to find a route through them.

 

[michael_w]

In Maine where the traps are like snow they are rigged with 2 traps per string and a buoy at each end. The lined are weighted to go straight down so your boat just pushes them out of the way. No problem. The exception is Casco Bay where the lobster men use a toggle which floats close to the surface. A friend who sailed in Maine for umpteen years has only got hooked up once.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

I have been potted and needed RNLI assistance of Padstow, however I like crab and lobster and there is no regulation against properly marked pots.

Navigator commented on number of pot in Wembury bay but unless coming into Yealm at night which is not reccomended, I foresee no issues (i might still do it)

Mevagissy is more odd as straight in the entrance and not only used by local - ok well mostly

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Then we get a situation called 'ghost fishing' (or ghost lobstering perhaps) when a buoy is cut off, but the pot stays on the bottom, continuously attracting new critters to climb in, and then they die, and become bait for more lobsters and crabs, and the cycle continues.
There could easily be a situation where most of the lobsters are in the ghost pots on the bottom (if there are a lot of them), rather than climbing in to the ones that are marked.

Chopping off a working man or womans livelyhood out of spite is pretty nasty. Fishermen dont get rich.

Fouling the seabed with dead pots filled with pointlessly dying crabs is also pretty eco gross.

 

[graham]

Some pots are laid in strings with a marker at each end. If someones rope cutter slices one off the string of pots can be recovered from the other end.

Personally I try to avoid arriving anywhere in the dark, hard enough to see them all in the daylight.

If you do snag one and cant clear it from onboard I think its worthy of lifeboat assistance. Going over the side with a knife in your teeth could quickly go horribly wrong.

 

[fisherman]

Fouling the seabed with dead pots filled with pointlessly dying crabs is also pretty eco gross.

Doesn't happen. The pot netting is quickly eaten through by crabs. A month at most. Then a pot becomes a haven for sea life of all sorts.

 

[fisherman]

Some pots are laid in strings with a marker at each end. If someones rope cutter slices one off the string of pots can be recovered from the other end.

Normal procedure, creeping for pots with both ends cut. I have even recovered a single pot on several occasions. Only in shallow water and I was sure where it was. exactly. Used to leave pots to overwinter sometimes, take the ends off. In the end I shot one string N-S, then tied the two ends, total 150fm, together, and shot the next S-N. Creep up one, got the whole lot.

 

[RivalRedwing]

I do hope everyone enjoys their crab sandwiches and lobster dinners when off on their summer cruise and not give a single thought to how it came to the plate

that has always been my conflict

 

[geem]

Doesn't happen. The pot netting is quickly eaten through by crabs. A month at most. Then a pot becomes a haven for sea life of all sorts.

Not my experience. Diving around Martinique, there are self feeding pots. No evidence that they are being eaten through by crabs. Its very sad to see reef fish caged in a trap. Its sad to see the locals taking reef fish at all, but that's what they do. There is no legislation or control. The fisherman don't care about the health of the reef. It's just take, take take.
I would be very happy to see a ban on fishing with nets and pots for benefit of the oceans.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Doesn't happen. The pot netting is quickly eaten through by crabs. A month at most. Then a pot becomes a haven for sea life of all sorts.

Thats a relief if true, but still much too much plastic rubbish in our oceans.

I have once cut a net free from my prop but I did not like to do it for both ecologic and another souls economic reasons

 

[fisherman]

I've picked up long lost pots from sometimes very deep water, 45fm. Up comes a huge ball of weed and other marine organisms, with lots of animals living amongst it. I used to tie old pots in a bunch and dump them to make an artificial reef.
Monofilament netting is another thing altogether. Should have been banned from the very start, for ecological and fish conservation reasons.

 

[fisherman]

Not my experience. Diving around Martinique, there are self feeding pots. No evidence that they are being eaten through by crabs.

Well in the Uk pots are clothed woth polypropylene netting. Other countries (US) sometimes use weldmesh.
If you examine any stack of pots on a quay in the UK, that have been to sea, ie not new, you will easily see how many times the net has been patched up. Once the hole has been mended the crabs will go for the same spot over and over again. Or they will find a crucial weak spot that makes an escape. They aren't as daft as they look.
If I hauled 300 pots I would reckon to mend probably twenty. If there had been bad weather and they were left for a couple of weeks, forty. When pots were left over winter I left the doors open, otherwise crabs would get in regardless of bait or not, and then eat their way out.