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Lobster pots

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

mirror

Well-Known Member
Aug 15, 2010
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I occasionally find stray /washed up lobster pots and was thinking of placing them by diving, in a convenient location, and baiting them ,and was wondering if anyone else has tried this with any success and how often they need to be checked / re-baited /emptied etc
 
Once tried with one of those collapsable cheap things, I checked everyday, although if I remember personal collection has to be frequent but not that frequent, commercial is every dayi think but I could be wrong. I did every day to be safe. Never took a large lobster bit did get a few crabs, then lost the pot! Only other experiance worth mentioning, swimming with a pot is nigh on impossible and don't stick it wherew commercial guys drop their own.. They don't like it!
 
A commercial pot weights far to much to swim with but if you could get it in position alongside a reef, then you could service it.
 
I have set pots from my dinghy and serviced them by diving. it wasnt worth the hassle for me so i stopped. its quite do-able tho.
my main concern was that i was aware of people watching me diving a bobber/pot and they wouldnt know that it was mine! Yesterday i had a fishing boat follow me for an hour as i went with the tide along the coast, the area i was diving had plenty of pots/bobbers, but is also good for pollack, and i was after the latter!
 
Not to sure what commercial potters do but when i have used a pot after lobsters i check every day - depending on whats in there they can start mashing each other up a bit and i feel a bit bad leaving stuff in there any longer.
Foxfish is right the commercial pots are well heavy - not sure how you would get them into position without a boat - i guess you could float them into position with bouys then cut them off when its where you want them?
Good luck if you try!
 
I've known people who both service pots via diving and and also by foot on spring tides. in my experience those who have a "diving" pot have always attatched a very small bobber/bottle on 1m of line so that its easy to spot the pot under water but commercials arent able to spot/ steal the pot as the floats only 1m off the bottom. My advice would be try to do your pot around the foot of boulers/reef and use bait thats had atleast 1 day out the fridge/in the sun, the smellyer the better.
 
I read an article once that stated lobsters don't like walking on them soft collapsible pots so catches with them were low, don't know how true that is though.
I have found some pots over the years which now I have a boat will drop and have a pop with scuba and free dive this year.
The farmer at my campsite said bait with old smelly red gurnard as the flesh stays longer and is good for lobster,also the metre line with float was suggested as he had commercials taking his pots until he tried this
Try it I'm sure you will have luck
 
Noticed the comments on having to protect your own pots from the Commercial Fishermen - I've had the same worry about setting pots myself. Serious question, why are commercial fishermen the most selfish, miserable b*****rds you ever meet? Oh yes, I forgot, they own the sea, don't they
 

Its their livelihood and our hobby... obviously they will be threatened and will react as they see fit.
If someone walked into my office and started doing my work for free I'd be a little worried!
 
Ah, the 'livelihood' justification, didn't see that one coming... just because something makes you money, doesn't mean you can break the law and generally be a git (unless you're a banker ).

Rival companies take business away from me everyday, it impinges on my livelihood, shall I go and burn down their offices? Hmmm...

You don't exactly see struggling farmers creeping about at night and trashing peoples allotments or vegetable gardens do you rofl
 
Reactions: foxfish
I've have made up a couple of lobster pots that I'm waiting for you to help me with.! if We ever get the boat in the sea !!!HaHa .LOL got bait ropes floats n weights sorted.Just need flatish sea.might end up floating them out with 'air'bags in them then pulling the plug so to speak.
 
Have you ever pulled a lobster trap off the bottom that has been sitting there for a while. They stink and make a huge mess. Plus its hard to tell the FWC officer that you found a trap that you weren't really supposed to take. The commercial trappers will draw their permit number in the concrete on the bottom and have their tag attached it as well. Technically its still their property even if it doesn't have a float on it...This is what an FWC officer explained to me. Not after i took a trap, but after i asked him.
 
To make the pot lighter you could replace the metal frame with a PVC pipe frame and add weights when you arrive to the location could work I guess never tried it but you never know
 
well, thought I would bump this thread as its relevant to my current interests.

I'm in the process of building a pot - I've constructed a wooden pallet from 38mm x 19mm wood strips (no idea what the wood is) and made a frame from MDPE pipe (the blue stuff from B&Q).
The netting I found washed up at porthtowan, which is a bonus as 1) re-using litter and 2) its free. Happy days.

Just need to buy an 8.5" pot neck as I want a top entry pot.

Some questions:

The plan is to float this pot out on a bodyboard and sink it with a couple of red bricks. You think they'll be heavy enough?
Going to place it in 3m ish of water over low tide and don't want it washing away in a heavy sea. The spot I have in mind is protected from westerly winds.

What is a good bait? I've heard smelly wrasse can be good, but are there other more sustainable options I can do with a spear rather than murder wrasse? Pollock any good?

If you're interested in how I fare, I will keep this thread alive with updates. If anyone else has experience of servicing un-marked pots of their own entirely by diving please advise on anything you think may help, it would be much appreciated
 
I put my home made pot in the other weekend baited with frozen scallops innards I've collected over the spring ,I put a bag inside as a float had a night mare dragging it out with tide racing missed the spot I was aiming for .I had no weights on for extra buoyancy big mistake .came back to find it high n dry on rocks later put it back in on v low tide wedged in a hole with more rocks in it got one small crab over night.had one 2m float on it which I will shorten to 1 m so I can find it in low vis and land marks can be very deceptive!There was a string of pots near by which had no lobsters in only dog fish as bait.I'd float it in next time or drop it in off boat .
 
Pots need to be very well weighted down if you want them to stay put!
Rough weather will dislodge whole strings of 25kg pots so a few house bricks ain't going to do much good if the weather changes!
You can use beach stones though to fill the bottom...any fresh fish bait will work although mackerel will attract dogfish & conger from afar!
 
I did have two long cast sash window weights fixed in the pot all ready ! Then some big rocks but that didn't stop it moving! So I wedged it in a hole in the weed and rocks.
 
Hmmm, the more of this pot gets built the more obvious it is just how much weight will be needed to pin the beggar down! Anyone know how much buoyancy a bodyboard provides/weight it will support?!
 
I had a couple of palastic covered wire mesh pots that were weighted with two engineers bricks each. They used to go walkabout in spring tides but i used to set them in the solent which flows v fast. Most we ever got was 12 lobsters in one pot, but half were undersize so went back. Sometimes got nothing at all. Used rotten mackerel for bate. Rotten equals lobbies, fresh equals crab..... Mostly.
 
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