Ghost Pots - We don't need to pay anymore...

[paxfish]

i need to make sure i understand this clearly. A pot costs me 20$, a cork costs 4$, iron costs 4$, paint costs @ 4$ a pot, rope costs 3$, zinc costs 1.25. When i add it up, a pot costs just under 40$. Not to mention the time to rig. I hope your argument isn't that pots are lost on purpose. Or that a pot owner "made the mess."

Dark corks are great on white cap days, but fair weather people don't know that.

What is a daisy chain?

I agree with you on the dark colors on the corks. They are much more visible, especially in low light situations.

I think your floats are pretty darn big to require $4 worth of paint though!

With regard to the lost pots. It seems from the information gathered during the ghost pot recovery that something like 15 to 20% of the pots are lost each season - does that match your experience?

Regardless of the cause of the loss, the ghost pot recovery program confirmed there is significant pot loss in a given season. Knowing that, the lost pots should be modified such that the long cycle of catch-kill-catch-kill is interrupted. Stopped. A good way of doing that would be to require an easily replaced degradable panel in the pot that will rot out after a prescribed time in the water.

Finally, I've never seen a load of old pots heading to the landfill. I do see lots of new pots in the spring being transported on trailers. They are usable for about 3 years right? So with 15 to 20% attrition during the season, roughly half a year's sales of pots should be going to landfills, right?

What happens to pots that are "wore out?"

[going2fast]

I think he's referring to Paint to mark the pots. We dip a certain section of the pot in a certain color to identify them in case some other crabber finds them they know who's they are or in a case we had last year a pos [crabber] pulled his pots and stacked them on shore. yup you guessed it. he had 10 of our pots in his stack with his corks on them. sad but common practice for low lives.

[Scott McGuire]

G2F,

Do you think most potters stick to the # of pots they are permitted to fish? I've heard stories that nobody really sticks to their pot limits. The reason I ask is because I think our fishery has reached a point of innefficiency. While I have no data to prove it, I believe the crab fishery is overcaptilized with gear. I mean - take a look at any popular spot to put crab pots - it is a complete minefield. This causes a problem because the competition between pots is probably what is limiting the catch (not the abundance of crabs themselves).

Imagine if there were half as many pots, and they were all twice as full. I know if I was a potter, I'd have an interest in catching the same number of crabs for half the amount of work/cost. I'm willing to wager that we could cut the amount of gear in half (or nearly so) - and the MD catch would still be the same. The problem is - if nobody is sticking to their pot limits - what is half?

It doesn't effect me much for someone else to be inefficient - except that the volume of crab pots in certain areas make them unfishable/un-navigable.

-S

[chesbay2]

Pax- The paint I was referring to is what we coat/dip our pots in. It is @2500$ a barrel. We don't spray paint our pots. And we don't use a paint brush. The dumpster at our wharf is where the pot graveyard is. We salvage what we can: zincs, rope, rebarb, corks and crush the rest. I hope people don’t think the pots lost in the bay are the old, discarded ones. Was that being suggested? (“I’ve never seen a load of pots going to the landfill”) If the rebarb, zincs, and corks are off of them….I will support your argument.

Scott- Half as many pots sounds great….if the crabs were evenly dispersed at 20 per square yard and they farted so I would know exactly where to set my pot =) I will take my chances, cover more ground, and put more effort out. Work hard or go home.
Inefficient? In your opinion.
Stories = rumors, please don’t.

[Scott McGuire]

Stories = rumors, please don’t.

Not trying to start any... looking for confirmation directly from a reliable source - You and G2F. What do you think?

[chesbay2]

Not that i know of (setting extra pots). 900 pot licenses are coveted by big rigs. I do know guys scrambling to get those. Why bother scrambling to get that license if you are just gonna do it anyway? No, i dont know anyone setting over. I will admit sometimes pots are used to mark territory. Cant blame 'em. When the crabs move/switch areas you will be there and ready.

[Matt]

dogs use pee to mark territory

I know some watermen too and they are honest. They think "territory" means when one commercial crabber sets on the other guys "territory" the guy who owns the "territory" cleans out the pots and sometimes cuts them loose. Anecdotal? Anybody watch the lobster show? Or the king crab show? Territory = anger

[chesbay2]

Oh lord you watch tv and now you are an expert. I think Matt likes me.

[Scott McGuire]

(Hoping to continue with a respectful discussion)

So what is the oversight on # of pots? Is it an honor system?

[Matt]

Thats a great question Scott but unfortunately its a rhetorical question. The States do not count how much gear is deployed by license holder or across the fishery. And there's no way to know who lost or abandoned how much gear in a given year or across multiple years. This is one of my longstanding questions and concerns about our commercial crabbing fishery.