Pumicestone passage Crab traps

[Noelm]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/20...hing/102482952
get ready for the ban the crab traps party.........the minute someone mentions, Turtles, Dugongs and Whales, the end is near.

[Dignity]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/20...hing/102482952
get ready for the ban the crab traps party.........the minute someone mentions, Turtles, Dugongs and Whales, the end is near.

I carry floats with a clip that say "Abandoned Pot" which I attach to those that my flattie jigs manage to bring up and are obviously derelict or have no floats as we're not allowed to bring them back to shore. A few are in reasonable shape with the owners name on them, it looks like either raided and floats cut off or lines cut by passing traffic, I usually send them a txt msg with a GPS location of where their pot is but have never ever received a reply back.

The State Govt was going to legislate a couple of years ago that light weight pots would be outlawed but that went by the wayside when CV19 came along and hasn't been resurrected to my knowledge. I believe the proposed legislation didn't go far enough and should have included a weight at least 1 metre below the float, this would alleviate a lot of cut offs from passing traffic. I use them when I crabbed, don't anymore because of the share farmers, and I found even picking up the pots was easier with the weight. I still see light weight pots being sold everywhere.

[chris69]

A lot of people throw there pots in and come back only to see them high and dry and give up and go home, when the weed is about the float line might be long enough until the tide runs and take s the pots with it into deeper water,and then you have to boats running over floats and the pot sinkers that cant find there pots with there grappling hooks.

I think it was a good thing to retrieve them but there the only ones they can see there's ten fold that cant be seen and still ghost fishing.

[Dignity]

A lot of people throw there pots in and come back only to see them high and dry and give up and go home, when the weed is about the float line might be long enough until the tide runs and take s the pots with it into deeper water,and then you have to boats running over floats and the pot sinkers that cant find there pots with there grappling hooks.

I think it was a good thing to retrieve them but there the only ones they can see there's ten fold that cant be seen and still ghost fishing.

Not wrong there, and this was only the lower part of the Passage. It amazes me the number of pots dropped at a nice high tide where they'll be exposed at low tide.
That's an issue with tourists. I pulled a boat with my little tinne off a sand bar a month back, he'd come down from Noosa for a look at the new bar, he'd used his old tracks on his GPS from a few years back. Unfortunately that's what most visitors do so they contribute to the "lost" crab pots.

[tunaticer]

I think the bigger issue these days is the sheer numbers of deliberately sunk pots that are not reclaimed.
I was in Boggy Creek over last xmas on an extra low tide, I counted in excess of 30 sunk pots that I could see along about 600m of 1 bank.
In the Pine when the water is super clear you can see hundreds of pots on the bottom in up to 3m of water, no ropes or floats.

I also think most guys that sink pots also sink well in excess of their legal numbers of pots too.

It also used to be law that you could not interfere with any crab hole, and these days it is the in thing to do to pull crabs from the holes by hand.

Seems that the crabs do not have any real hope of survival these days with all the grubs about.

I go crabbing maybe twice a year and run my 4 pots or 8 pots with tags and floats if I have a decky on board.....

[Noelm]

I guess it doesn't matter what it is, dick heads will be dick heads, no amount of laws or cleanups will prevent dick wits doing the wrong thing, and the end result is tighter restrictions and/or bans.......watch this space!

[Dignity]

I think the bigger issue these days is the sheer numbers of deliberately sunk pots that are not reclaimed.
I was in Boggy Creek over last xmas on an extra low tide, I counted in excess of 30 sunk pots that I could see along about 600m of 1 bank.
In the Pine when the water is super clear you can see hundreds of pots on the bottom in up to 3m of water, no ropes or floats.

I also think most guys that sink pots also sink well in excess of their legal numbers of pots too.

It also used to be law that you could not interfere with any crab hole, and these days it is the in thing to do to pull crabs from the holes by hand.

Seems that the crabs do not have any real hope of survival these days with all the grubs about.

I go crabbing maybe twice a year and run my 4 pots or 8 pots with tags and floats if I have a decky on board.....

I remember as a teenager crabbing at Boggy Creek using the walkway across it. Fishing usually resulted in big pike eel which the migrants would take and steam them, they reckon they're tasty but I didn't like it. Digging for blood worms there was interesting, sink up to your hips in ooze and scoop up big handfuls of mud but you would get heaps in a very short but muddy time.

I havent been there in over 50 years, I wonder how much it's changed.

[Lovey80]

Went for a fish yesterday in the Maroochy River. Could have picked up at least 8 abandoned pots. I know there’s rules about messing with pots that are not yours, but I think there’s a way to find a middle ground so that recreational fishers can remove clearly abandoned pots.

[disorderly]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/20...hing/102482952
get ready for the ban the crab traps party.........the minute someone mentions, Turtles, Dugongs and Whales, the end is near.

Its inevitable they will be banned at some stage..but I think you are missing the point Noel..they really are evil things if lost or abandoned...so many critters will die a totally horrible death stuck inside...

I dont bother crabbing much anymore because of pot raiders and low crab numbers up this way but regularly see abandoned pots around the creeks in Missonary bay at Hinchinbrook though it seems that someone must remove them periodically...

Like lovey mentions there should be some provision and encouragement for people to be able to pick up obviously abandoned pots but then it would be a free-for-all for pot theives wouldnt it..?.I'm not as brave a Sam to touch pots that arent mine...

[Dignity]

Its inevitable they will be banned at some stage..but I think you are missing the point Noel..they really are evil things if lost or abandoned...so many critters will die a totally horrible death stuck inside...

I dont bother crabbing much anymore because of pot raiders and low crab numbers up this way but regularly see abandoned pots around the creeks in Missonary bay at Hinchinbrook though it seems that someone must remove them periodically...

Like lovey mentions there should be some provision and encouragement for people to be able to pick up obviously abandoned pots but then it would be a free-for-all for pot theives wouldnt it..?.I'm not as brave a Sam to touch pots that arent mine...

Not being brave but it's amazing how you don't want to lose a lure or a jig head and how much pressure 6lb braid will take, rarely will it break pulling up a snag that turns out to be an abandoned pot. They go straight back but with my attached float identifying it as abandoned and usually they are so full of weed and crap and in some cases twisted that I have no qualms doing it. At times you can spot them so you can avoid them but there are times you can't. I really hate those exposed pots at low tide with what look like new floats, trouble is I can't get to them or even touch those.

[Noelm]

It must be a very QLD thing? I don't see/snag many lost traps at all, maybe one a year? I have found buoys with weed growing on them that obviously been there a long time, whether lost or just abandoned is anyone's guess, but, we don't set in current, so pots drifting away is near unheard of (in my area) I have bought home snagged gear, not exactly sure of any laws preventing doing that here in NSW, but I have never looked for such law either!
edit......I just searched the fisheries website and couldn't find anything about removing old, derelict traps (I might have missed it of course) it mentions touching other people's gear, but, not unmarked or lost traps, so.......maybe that's why we/I don't see many?

[disorderly]

Noel to put it in perspective QLD's commercial mudcrab harvest is around 10x more then NSW according to a bit of googling i just did, although I should really be outside working....buts its showery and miserable ATM ..Anyway not sure about rec numbers but any typical tidal estuary in FNQ, particularly on a weekend or holidays, will have bucket loads of Polystyrene buoys along the channels beside the mangroves and further down near the river mouths as well, then you wonder how many you dont see from the surface from those that sink them, marking the location on gps and hoping they can find them later with a gaff or grapple hook or the ones stealthily tied up in underneath the mangroves without a buoy..

Then you have the difference in Tidal flow.....down your way there is not much more then a metre variance between high and low tide...by comparison there is up to about 2 metres in SEQ...up to about 3 metres on the Cassowary coast where I am and up to 5 metres around Central QLD....so you can imagine what happens to lightweight pots dropped in any type of channel or current particularly by newbies and weekend warriors without a clue..

Ghost pots really are a huge problem up this way..

[tunaticer]

It must be a very QLD thing? I don't see/snag many lost traps at all, maybe one a year? I have found buoys with weed growing on them that obviously been there a long time, whether lost or just abandoned is anyone's guess, but, we don't set in current, so pots drifting away is near unheard of (in my area) I have bought home snagged gear, not exactly sure of any laws preventing doing that here in NSW, but I have never looked for such law either!
edit......I just searched the fisheries website and couldn't find anything about removing old, derelict traps (I might have missed it of course) it mentions touching other people's gear, but, not unmarked or lost traps, so.......maybe that's why we/I don't see many?

It is the norm in SEQ to hit any waterway near low tide and find either lost, sunk or clearly ghost pots in the shallows.
Add to that you find a huge number more with a sidescan sounder tuned well.
In my local Pine River during peak crabbing season it is not uncommon to have 20 floats on the surface within about 350m of you....I suspect there is at least equal numbers that have been deliberately sunk, and who knows how many that have been raided and floats cut off and discarded.
This is pretty standard for most waterways in SEQ.

So you have those numbers of pots in the water and you really have to wonder just how many crabs are being taken from the water.....how long is this sustainable for?
I suppose you can also think that if a raider does return the pot to the water reset that also adds rather heavily to harvested numbers too.

Back in the 80's I used witches hats exclusively and checked them every 15 minutes for the session then took the traps home....nobody got a chance to raid them and the bycatch didn't die being checked so often. Now we must run traps that are nearly always set for hours to days at a time of course any bycatch is going to suffer or die far more frequently.

I am glad I don't crab often these days...it seems so stressful placing your pots and not getting any results or your pots back even.

I have changed to a different type of pot that catches well, does not drift in the current and is easier to use....I use them for 4 hours only and generally in very public places and luckily have not been raided.

[alleycat]

Its something that can spoil a trip, to turn up to your favorite stretch of bank and see crab floats right along it and sure as eggs in the Passage there will be the line of crab pots high and dry on a sandbank, and it might be time to reduce the number of pots per person and boat, a 4.2meter tinny can have 4 people with 4 pots each , in the open bay this might not be a problem but a few boats with 4 crabbers can have an estuary looking like a state school swimming carnival pool, i dont own a crab pot, all the drama of theft coupled with the mud and crap they bring into your boat makes it not worth the effort.

[Dignity]

Its something that can spoil a trip, to turn up to your favorite stretch of bank and see crab floats right along it and sure as eggs in the Passage there will be the line of crab pots high and dry on a sandbank, and it might be time to reduce the number of pots per person and boat, a 4.2meter tinny can have 4 people with 4 pots each , in the open bay this might not be a problem but a few boats with 4 crabbers can have an estuary looking like a state school swimming carnival pool, i dont own a crab pot, all the drama of theft coupled with the mud and crap they bring into your boat makes it not worth the effort.

I agree, one reason I don't go out weekends, especially long ones and school holidays.

Maybe be like WA and only allow drop nets, no wildlife being unnecessarily caught, requires regular check ups and will reduce lost pots, stolen pots, sunken pots without floats and share farmers. That'll reduce numbers of floats out there.