Wanted - Lobster Dinner for two

  • Thread starter Thread starter CuretonCorbett
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I have been told in the past that you can have upto six pots without a licence, as long as you are only fishing for yourself. In a drunken conversation with a French fisherman, I asked him how he would feel about me picking up one of his pots to find my supper. He said he wouldn't mind as I would only have a one in ten chance of finding a lobster. He also said some of the other local (Granville) fishermen would sink my boat if they caught me!
Allan
 
Six seems to be the norm for unlicensed and is about as many as you would want if you use the right sort of pot. I use just three double side entry creels and I catch plenty, 8 lobsters in three pots in one haul last summer, mind you thats rare.
Some French yachtsmen seem to regard pots as theirs to haul wherever they are and do not worry about who's they are, if caught round here they get short shrift as would anyone caught hauling gear not belonging to them.
 
Keep it away from local fishermen, they are a strange lot and think they own the sea.
Pete

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It's not your fault, far from it, but when you've paid 20k for a licence, as I have, for the privilege of going to sea to make a living, you get peed off with folks who, like Scillypete catches 8 fish in a haul. (ahem ahem, admitting to breaking the law. If I get caught with an illegal lobster, the penalty coud be £1000 per fish) Difficult, innit? Why should you not do what you want with a natural resource? Well, try abstracting water from a river, or catching someone's Salmon.
 
This'll do fer two
Lobforum.jpg
 
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Shurely the waiter brigns it to your table about 15mins after you've ordered it!



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Don't call me Shurely /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
As Scillypete says, use something smelly. I have had good luck with old cooked chicken, fesh chicken seems to do well for edible crabs.

If using a folding pot don't leave it down for too long as they are a bit on the floppy side.

Where does eveyone get their proper pots from?
 
I have had one for a season or two. Total catch one decent sized eel in Ste Marine, and one reasonable sized crab in the Brest estuary. Plus countless little green crabs.

The trouble with them is that if you don't want a smelly yacht, you have to go for 'instant' bait. I know the salted rotted fish is the best, but it doesn't mix with a leisure boat environment.

My solution is to have a few of the small flat tins of mackerel or herring or sardines, and when deploying the pot just poking a few holes in one with a marline spike and putting it in the bait sac. The oily contents leach out through the holes, and the thing is clean to handle.

Seems to work.

With green crabs at least.
 
I have yet to buy a folding lobster pot - just for the fun of the unlikelyhood that I managed to snare an edible crustaceans - but last year I did buy two prawn pots, which I deployed three days before I had to retire the boat from the water for repairs.

Over one night, in the two pots, I caught two pints of shrimp/prawn type things, using a dried mackerel.

After leaving them in some nice running seawater in a bucket for the day, they were rendered unconcious by turning off the running water and letting the oxygen deplete, where their next rendezous was in a frying pan with butter and crushed garlic.

A veritable feast was then enjoyed in the cockpit as the air was swathed in garlic fumes and satisfied grunts.
 
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My solution is to have a few of the small flat tins of mackerel or herring or sardines, and when deploying the pot just poking a few holes in one with a marline spike and putting it in the bait sac. The oily contents leach out through the holes, and the thing is clean to handle.

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I was told that if you used the tinned bait, that injecting fisherman's pilchard oil into the tins works even better.

It is evil stuff if you spill it, so I am told.
 
Tha best type of pot I've used is a traditional inkwell type, with 2" mesh. Most of the advertised 'diy' pots are rubbish - mesh size too small and entrance too small. I think Bridport Gundry are still going, and they sell proper potting gear. While still at school I used to help my dad make up lobster and prawn pots during the winter. We used to set the lobster pots in strings of six, and the prawn pots in strings of twelve, all close inshore, just below the low-water spring mark. Accuracy of setting is very important, and we always used to aim for clear sandy spots within a few feet of the rocks. The prawn pots were by far the most productive.
 
Thank you all for your posts - some amusing, most informative and all appreciated. FYI I emailed the Chief Fishery Officer on the matter of dropping a recreational pot or two in this manner...

Hello,
Got your email address from a forum on the internet and was promised: "All relevant info here, your local Sea Fishery Office"

I have a collapsible lobster pot and would like to deploy it in the Solent area 3 to 4 times a year to catch Lobster and crab. I have made myself conversant with minimum sizes of catch. The purpose of my catch would be purely social - for private consumption while recreational sailing at weekends. I have been advised that I will need a licence and that there are regulations governing the deployment of such devices. Please could you send me any information that you consider relevant to my intended use.

Thanks,

His reply, short and to the point was;

If you use your lobster pot as you have described below you do not need a licence. Our Byelaws and wheelhouse card can be found by following the links on our web site: http://www.southernsfc.org.uk

Yours sincerely

Ian Carrier
Clerk and Chief Fishery Officer

So, armed with just a £5.99 collapsible pot from t'internet, a small kedge anchor, twenty metres of line and an empty mineral water bottle, I shall attempt to rustle up a lobster dinner for meself and the Memsahib in the next couple of months. She bets me dinner at the Jolly Sailor that I can't catch a lobster, or at least a crab big enough to eat. It's a matter of principal now, as a hunter gatherer, failure is not an option! Anyway, thanks again for your posts all of you and I'll report my results.
 
Then you will need some marks. Princess shoal cardinal mark SE of Bembridge has the wreck of the France Amiee. Not much left of the wreck but you should pick up some parts on a good echo sounder. The lobsters live under the wreck plates and are protected - by a bloody great conger eel /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif hence why I didn't put my hands in. Good luck.
 
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