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FAD's

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Mattedhead

Drying up inland...
Aug 28, 2002
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Earlier this year I was talking to Jay Styron and we discussed ideas for FAD's. We were thinking of putting a few near a productive live bottom area ~25-30 miles offshore here.
We came up with a couple of ideas but I am open for any suggestions. The basis of the design was a sand screw with poly rope and a "norwegian" buoy that we could inflate at depth. The structure was originally going to come from survey tape woven into the rope to create a tree-top like structure. The buoy would come to within 20' of the surface and there would also be a structure attached to the rope near the bottom to attract grouper. Instead of survey tape I thought about weaving a natural raffia like material so that it didn't pose a threat to birds turtles etc.
Having no experience with this, I was hoping that some of you might have imporovements upon this design....the main concerns being #1--no environmental hazards, #2--no navigational hazards, #3--needs to attract fish.
The area is ~85-100' deep with a hardbottom ledge with relief of up to 15'. I have 0.25m resolution sidescan imagery for a 2.5 x 3.5km area so we have a good idea of where we need to put the FAD's....the only question now is WHAT do we put there.

Let the brainstorming begin-

Thanks,
Matt
 
FAD=fish attracting device, I think.

From experience it's hard to beat keeping it very simple. Small or half cinder block, poly rope and an appropriate fish net float. Make lots of them. They start to attract growth quickly
Aloha
Bill
 
Originally posted by Mattedhead
....the only question now is WHAT do we put there.
Matt


Easy. Me with my new 60"Alexander! :king

FAD's or fish aggregating devices first need to bring in or up the fish. Then they need to be cheap enough to lose regularly. It's nice if they're biodegradable that way.

The construction barricade tape is great in the first two ways- it's ridiculously cheap and it works to bring in the fish. Put a grundle of it together ala a big bloom of strands and sit back and aim. Trouble is that don't go away if it's lost. Bad juju.

I've seen and dove around homemade FAD's constructed of old ship's hawswers. ( Hawser is the big thick rope, not the Canadian pronunciation of "hoser".) Tie a section of that stuff to the cinder block and let it resemble a palm tree after a while. The frayed manila line breaks out into great big dangling blooms and if it gets sucked in by some turtle or whatever, it too shall pass. Lacing a small milk carton to add bouyancy will keep it up and swaying. Snoop around some of the beat-up boatyards after that minor weather pattern you guys had a few weeks ago and they'll give you the stuff.
 
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first thing you need to do is check with the state laws about such projects. Here we can not dump anymore b/c of the shrimpers getting mad about their nets getting torn up. The state has areas called fish havens where they dump stuff but we cant do private reefs. In Alabama they can dump privately and we have come up with a couple of designs. One of the best for bottom fish is made by using square"(or close to it)chainlink fence gates. We get them from the dump. Once you get 6 of them, get some bags of quickcrete, barricade tape and put it all on the boat. Make the gates into a cube but put the quickcrete in first. You can cut a big hole ot two in the link so fish can swim in and out(this isnt a fish trap:D ) and tie lengths of the tape all over the thing. WE get creative every now and then and have patched together some large versions of these cubes. They work great especially on grouper snapper and aj's. Every once in a while I dive them to check on their status and find the bait balls will get inside the cage to hide from the predators and you can watch big snappers and the like "ram" the cage tring to get at them.

We have also built platforms for the back of the boat and have dumped eveything from culverts to car bodies...the biggest thing is making soome structure that will get much less pressure than other areas...just look out for number vultures.
 
Did you say FAD?

Can you say "surplus navy vessel" boys and girls? Drag one of those puppys out there with your kayak, pull the cork and SHAAZAAMM!!

Oh, um the coast guard wouldn't mind? right?

:hmm
 
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