Florida Panhandle trotlining report

[Crabcruncher]

St. Andrews Bay, Snood bayou

Got on water and deployed first thousand feet of trotline with bull lips by seven am. Started off slow, than deployed second thousand feet after we got it defrosted and detangled. Crabbing got better as tide got lower. Couple hours before low tide and male crabs were all over both trotlines. It was a Sunny day, but trotlining got best around 1130, over a dozen per run. This kept up until we called it a day around two pm. Finished day with close to nine dozen nice males.
Who dey say dey need dem traps. Who dey?

Cc

[fastswimmerCT]

nice haul.  when do they slow down in your area?

[Crabcruncher]

Its all year crabbing down here, but if I had to pick a best month, I would pick November.

Cc

[Islander]

Great job Cc! 

[Crabcruncher]

Thanks Islander

Since Florida marine patrol limited us by declaring the topless traps illegal here in Florida we had to adjust to the laws.
We found out that there is no limit to the trotline, So...Advantage good guys.
Took a few trips to get the trotline down to where it became as deadly a method as the topless traps but we had a vested interest, since we are crab addicts. As far as I know, Florida is virgin territory for trotlining. And it works.
Will see how far into the Winter months it is effective. Our water temp. here gets down to around 53 degrees in February, but will stay in low 60's up until than.

Cc

[DocSmith]

Great Job CC!  What depth and speed were you running and how are the snoods working out?

Doc

[tattoo]

nice going . looks like you have a system, good luck.

[Crabcruncher]

thanks Tattoo, we had a blast with the trotline

Doc,

Right now they are at all depths. Our trotline was mostly in eight feet but about fifty feet of it went over two feet of water. I actually scraped one off the bottom that I saw in the shallows.
The key to catching them was increasing our speed to 2.5 knots, our catch went up threefold after that.
One of our trotlines had snoods, and the other didnt. The snooded line had a definite edge, but if your not careful, the snood will get hung up in your net while your dipping.

Cc

[tattoo]

What kind of a net do you use ??

[Crabcruncher]

Tattoo

Have a standard crab net. Eight foot long handle with wire netting. Netting opening is large around frame area and sometimes when dipping, the snood will get inside net and catch on wire netting. Do you use snoods?

Cc

[DocSmith]

Thanks, CC -

A couple more... What was the wind like and sea state (smooth, light chop, etc.) and, assuming you laid east to west,  did you stay one one side of the line or the other to prevent the boat's shadow from scaring off the crabs who had taken the bait?

Doc

[Crabcruncher]

Doc

It was smooth, wind was from SE around ten mph, We LAID the lines with wind at our backs, helps keep us on line when we run it. The snooded line we RAN with the tide because we knew the snoods would keep the baits from coming out of the water too far ahead of us.
The unsnooded line we RAN against the tide, we knew this would help keep the baits from coming out of the water too far ahead of us.
Also this saved fuel since we had them set up parallel about a hundred yards apart, kind of like a loop. We ran the snooded line with the shadow over the line, we saw a few drop off, but the snoods kept them on long enough for the netter to get em.Again, we were conserving fuel and travel time, If we were running one line than we would have ran with no shadow.  After we ran both lines we rested them for about 15 minutes, having bull lips instead of chicken necks gives us a lot of options. Bull lips can be reused a lot of trips, while necks are eaten to the bone after three hours.
Like I said in the last post, I think the key to our success was running the lines at 2.5 mph steady. Made for a lot of fun when crabs would come up on adjacent baits. Had to learn to pass up the small one, and dip the big one behind him. If they both were big than it was a double dip. Pretty Hilarious sometimes, you got to try it.

Cc

[DocSmith]

CC -

Thanks for all the info - looks like you guys have a plan!

Doc

[tattoo]

 No , I use trabs , but I go out crabbing with guys that use snoods, we didn't have that problem at all.

Tattoo

Have a standard crab net. Eight foot long handle with wire netting. Netting opening is large around frame area and sometimes when dipping, the snood will get inside net and catch on wire netting. Do you use snoods?

Cc

[Crabcruncher]

I dont know Tattoo, maybe we were dipping more than you guys

[jeff l]

thanks Tattoo, we had a blast with the trotline

Doc,

Right now they are at all depths. Our trotline was mostly in eight feet but about fifty feet of it went over two feet of water. I actually scraped one off the bottom that I saw in the shallows.
The key to catching them was increasing our speed to 2.5 knots, our catch went up threefold after that.
One of our trotlines had snoods, and the other didnt. The snooded line had a definite edge, but if your not careful, the snood will get hung up in your net while your dipping.

Cc

Sorry if this sounds dumb---- You said you increased your  speed  what does that mean--dont you have to stop each bait and pull it up. And is a snood just a clip that hold the bait.
thanks --jeff

[DOMNIKDYL]

Jeff, here's a video Steve posted a while back, shows a trotline in use, haven't watched it in a while, can't remember if it has snoods or not

http://www.blue-crab.org/videos/trotline.wmv

[jeff l]

I see now, Thanks I think I will make one-------looks like fun

[tattoo]

go for it , have fun, good luck.

[frostydog]

I think I'm going to give the trotline a try this year.  How is the line weighted to stay on the bottom?  The line in the video looked pretty tight. 

[anchor]

i use 4ft chains on each end and also a 6ft chain in the middle, the only reason i use a 6 ft in the middle is a place i crab at in delaware has a very fast moving tide so the line needs to stay on bottom. as for most places i crab in maryland i dont need the middle chain as the tide doesnt run as fast there.good luck and trotlining alot of fun

[Crab Shack]

Nice haul, how big do they run down there?  What was the avg size of the ones you caught?  Thanks.....

[Crabcruncher]

Shack

Havent gone in a while, but they were running smaller on the trotline. If I had a choice, and since I dont because of the laws down here, I would be using the topless traps. I heard up in Maryland the biggest crabs come off a trotline, but not for me. Average size on trotline I would say is between 5 1/2 to 6.(keepers, that is, we see a lot of smaller ones)

Cc

[tattoo]

I have caucht my biggest crabs in traps, I have caught big ones on trotlines, but more in traps , they cant get out ot the trap as to where they can drop off the line.