Crab Pot Apology

[Richo1]

Hi all,

I did the unspeakable today, commited the gravest of crimes and accidently checked someone else's crabpot!

It started when a mate arrived from England and said he wanted to go crabbing - i hate crabbing a the best of times but managed to gather 9 pots between 3 of us and set out down the river mouth at 04:30. Dropped the pots on the bank alongside the oil pipeline then went off to chase some threadies. No luck with the threadies but did manage 10 Tailor out the front on spinners.

Came back to the pots about 9:30 and started pulling them in and packing up, feeling a bit tired and not exactly concentrating pulled up a pot which had an identical float, line and pot and started sorting through the small sandies to see if they made size. Next thing a boat pulls up and starts abusing us, I'm wondering what the fuss is about until I read the ID tag - then the penny drops
ITS NOT ONE OF OUR POTS

To that boat and the owner "Shane" we are very sorry and it was an honest mistake...... Next time I will be a lot more careful, if there is a next time as we got no crabs and I hate crabbing even more now!!!!

Sincerley,

Richo

[rosco1974]

mate,
u lucky that he didn't ram your boat,i know its an honest mistake,the other weekend my missus gaffed a pot and i instantly realised it wasn't mine so degaffed the float immediatly,the float didn't even get a foot out of the water,i know its hard when the floats and pots are the same but u need to find a way to make your floats more noticable to u,couple of marks on it,good on u for recognisin u mistake and willin to share on this site,keep crabbin mate makes an ordinary fishin trip be great if u get a few crabs
cheers rosco

[trueblue]

Mark your floats in a way unique to you. Like get a can of spray paint and put a single blob of green paint or something like that on it.

cheers

Mick

[Richo1]

Just hope they understand that too, we did have our pots in a line and whether their pot was already out and we didn't see it in the dark or they put it near ours later I don't know. Hate them to see me next time and think that is the crab thiefs boat!

(lucky it was the father in law's boat i guess)

[murf]

congratulations you are human

and well done on admitting a wrong

all good from my thoughts

so the other person should have marked his floats better as has been said above

you can usually tell pretty quick who is guilty when you front them with your traps

cheers Murf

[Axl]

At least you have admitted your mistake many wouldnt.

[CHAPPY]

Mark your floats in a way unique to you. Like get a can of spray paint and put a single blob of green paint or something like that on it.

cheers

Mick

We now fit 2 round poly floats per pot about 5 feet apart. They are painted flouro pink. Very hard to confuse ownership and extremely easy to find if there are white caps. Also safe for boaties with little chance of a boat strike. I hate those clear plastic float bottles. I hit one once and got the rope around the prop. The pot ended up on the bank.


Chappy

[Sea-Dog]

The way I mark my floats:

I get the standard 150mm poly floats, put a band of masking tape around the middle (along the equator if the holes are North and South poles)

Then I spray them with line-marking paint from Bunnings.

A couple of coats is enough to fully cover the foam and doesn't affect it either.

I then peel off the masking tape and use a felt tip marker to write my name and phone number in the unpainted band.

BTW - DPI regs state that you must have your name on your floats.
" ...The float must not be less than 15 cm in any dimension and must be marked clearly with the owner's name. ..."

See link.
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/28_3065.htm

There is no chance of anyone mistaking my floats for theirs.

Also the white band can assist with seeing the float in some light conditions.

If you wanted to go further you could use two different colours of line-marking paint. Just use masking tape applied in a pattern like segments of an orange.


A bit of creativity and you could have any number of colouring patterns.

Cheers, Ross.

[trueblue]

I use line marking paint as well.

[4x4frog]

Lucky he was so gracious, many today wouldn't be.
Yeah, mark your pots well and uniquely ASAP.


Years ago, early 80's we run out about 4(?) strings of pots per trip(3 guys). We'd had a big day and got quite a few sandies this particular day so headed home after 2 complete runs and a couple of hours fishing.
Got home, cleaned boat and started cleaning dillies. Realized we'd left a string out there, 8 pots I think. Headed back and it was about 3 in the afternoon by the time we got back there, all pots still soaking. Can't recall how many we got in that last take but just shows that people were truly honest once.

[rayken1938]

I burn my name on my poly floats with a fine tipped soldering iron. Makes it hard for others to reuse them.
Cheers
Ray