Cray Pots

 For whatever reason over the past couple of days, the lids of some of our cray pot bait baskets have come up opened . Even after further tensioning the elastic strap, the same thing has happened the following day. The lids appear to be a snug fit and do not open with absolute ease, even when we try to open them as we normally do. There is no consistency about the problem as we have had both lids open on one pot and only one on another ( we use pots with two bait baskets and operate 4 pots with 2 licenses). Have had this happen on the odd occasion a few weeks back also.

Any thoughts or advice of experiences would be appreciated.


Madmerv's picture

Posts: 672

Date Joined: 24/01/15

The master thief

Wed, 2016-01-20 18:07

 Occy are most probably the culprit and a nice smart one if you are potting in the same area each time. Are there any crays in the pots with open baskets?

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 Sometimes when the water is quiet, you can hear the fish laughing at you !

emem's picture

Posts: 14

Date Joined: 25/10/15

No crays!

Wed, 2016-01-20 18:19

No crays!

Posts: 790

Date Joined: 25/05/12

 Try put a nail or screw in

Wed, 2016-01-20 19:00

 Try put a nail or screw in the lids  so occys can't open them they are smart and strong

emem's picture

Posts: 14

Date Joined: 25/10/15

 There may be some

Wed, 2016-01-20 19:14

 There may be some credibility in the Occy theory. I recall on one occasion recently when on seeing an open lid, I surprisingly found one of our baits (half a salmon head) inside the pot!

Belly Fish's picture

Posts: 499

Date Joined: 09/03/12

We've had that problem

Wed, 2016-01-20 19:44

A small cheap cable tie will fix it 

Posts: 126

Date Joined: 07/12/15

Seals

Wed, 2016-01-20 20:39

I would say seals are to blame. Used to happen all the time when I had my cray boat. We used to make up wooden wedges like a doorstop, and jamb them in. The buggers would go along an entire line sometimes and clean out every basket. Occys aren't to blame. Never had a lid open except when fishing near a seal colony or after a massive swell, and that's after pulling tens of thousands of pots.

Posts: 21

Date Joined: 21/08/14

 have a similar problem at

Thu, 2016-01-21 09:16

 have a similar problem at the moment with plastic pots off FFB

1 pot was moved about 10-20 metres and a bit banged up (whole bait box gone, few cable ties snapped that were holding weights)

i did put a whole dhufish frame in my pot (not in the bait cage) so i suspected a sealion was trying to get it out... not sure if that was because of the dhu frame or just unlucky?

jamey ford's picture

Posts: 174

Date Joined: 25/05/11

 Cable tie them shut

Fri, 2016-01-22 12:11

 Cable tie them shut

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Far Quirk!