Ocean crab report and question

[HawgJaw]

We crabbed south of the T-bay Jetty on Saturday. We crabbed with 6 pots and three rings and ended up with 36 rock hard monsters. Here's the weird part. All 36 crabs were caught in the 3 rings (which I brought as an after thought) :whazzup: . I've always gotten at least a few in the pots (modified, weighted Danielson's) in that spot. There seemed to be some strange current. The rings/pots would would get lighter and then heavy as we were pulling them up. Any of you salty dogs know why rings would work when pots wouldn't? Just about the time I think I have this stuff figured out, something like this happens. thanks, HJ

[Myles]

HJ, there are people who contend that the water current flowing through a trap can build up an electrical charge that can repel sea creatures. A ring probably has the metal portions ?rubber? coated and the net is non metalic so it would be less likely to give off "negative vibes".
Scotty sells a "black box" to adjust this current as it builds up on the cable when trolling downriggers. I don't know what to do about it (or if it truelly exists) but maybe someone else will.


myles

[ANDYCOHO]

You say monster Dungies? Maybe they were to big to fit through the trap door???

I saw some of those dungies brought in from the ocean this weekend and I know they would have had a hard time gettin through the doors :shocked:

Also, I have had problems with some of those Danielson's door, if not weighted, staying open and just letting the crabs come and go like they please?

Man that ocean had to be flat if you were pulling pots, It hurt not being able to get out there yesterday!

Good luck,
Andy

[ 01-20-2003, 07:37 PM: Message edited by: ANDYCOHO ]

[Myles]

As far as the Danielson traps, I have 2. I saw they sold weighted doors as an aftermarket purchase for about $5, I just added a few inches of the round lead that you use for drift weights to hold the doors closed, then I wrapped a bit around the cheap poly rope that came with the traps every 15-20 ft. and covered it with electrical tape to keep the line from floating and possibly catching someone's prop.
I've been told of a study of crabs/traps and sometimes a crab hits a "wall" like a square trap, he'll follow the line sideways and keep on going. Supposedly the reason for round traps.

myles

[Pilar]

Hawgjaw, that's a sweet spot ... shhhhh!

It is somewhat dangerous with the swell building near the S. Jetty. When I learned to crab there all I ever used was the rings. It was only when crabbing became a secondary deal to bottom fish or salmon that I started using traps.

The traps work too, both round and square. The soak time required seems to be much higher, 2 hours vs. 20 minutes. Also the traps don't fish as well if there are rings nearby.

The first time I did the S. Jetty crab on Ron Belt's 'Seabird' we used 6 rings for 4 fishers. We set them out waited 30 minutes and limited and then some on the first pass. We were resetting after each ring was pulled. They were heavy and you could not pull them very quickly. You could see some of the crabs bailing out of the full ring as you pulled it in. By the time we got to the 3rd ring resetting the string was clearly not necessary and we ended up with like 70 crabs all too big to even bother checking with the gage by the time we recovered our gear.

The exercise then was to cull 70 crabs down to the 48 crab limit. So if it was missing a leg or was soft in any way we pitched it.

We use traps now but still get too many, huge barnacle bill crabs. Pretty much every time.

MMmmmmmmm! crab is good.

[ 01-21-2003, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Pilar ]