Crab Trap Thieves - 04-06-2012

[Night Wing]

Good haul of white bass if I'm not mistaken.

[KI Crabber]

Did not make it to the ponds ended up at lake Somerville.

Are they hybrids?

[BJ1fish]

 Ron, Night Wing and KI Crabber They are white bass i caught trolling spoons. I had a big hybrid but lost him at the boat when my friend fell why netting him.

[Dreampixels]

Friends name Dave?

[fishingtom]

Friends name Dave?

 

Where has he been anyway?

[carlosh]

When I saw that Swimmerl Crabber was catching crabs in the Nueces Bay area, I decide I would give it a try again in my area at the Kennedy Ranch Shoreline.  So I set out 6 traps in 5.5' of water in the morning and caught 11 crabs when I checked them that same evening.  I figured that this was going to be real good.  So, I rebaited them and left them for 2 days.  I went to check them on in the evening of the 2nd day and was disappointed to find only 8 crabs.  One of the traps was left open.  I'm fairly sure somebody raided them.  I did see another crabber nearby.  Who knows?  I picked them up and will not leave them overnight again unless I can check them early in the morning.

I go to the coast from Austin about every 2 or 3 weeks and stay there about a week each time.  The next time I go, I'm going to drop about 10 or 15 topless traps and check them hourly.  I suppose I'll devote the whole day to crabbing.

I've thought about the trick that somebody mentioned where you tie a cinder block to the end of the line on your float, but with a twist.  From the cinder block I'll tie a 3 or 4' piece of monofilament.  When they pull on the float rope and see the only thing on it is a cinder block, they'll assume that there's nothing on it because they can't see the monofilament, which by the way, has a cord tied to it and that cord is tied to the crab trap.  Has anybody tried that before?

[Crabcruncher]

Carlos,

I got the concrete block idea when I was dropping a couple traps near a high traffic area. Bait would be gone, no crabs, and doors left open. Sometimes they took the whole trap. This was back when traps cost fifteen bucks, not thirty five. There were a lot of boats dragging nets thru the area and large barges would come thru and suck unanchored traps out to the channel where they would sink.
I killed two birds with one stone with the concrete block.
If anyone pulls it up near the surface it would coat there boat with six pounds of attached rivermud.
I would never pull it up that far, just far enough to grab the rope attached to the crabpot.  You need a rope long enough that after you drop the block back to the bottom, the trap can be pulled into the boat with room to spare.
I had my traps in five feet of water, so my line to the trap was about fifteen ft. long.
Get rid of the mono line. You dont need it.

Cc