Bigsfish
Guru
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2016
- Messages
- 2,997
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Gotcha
- Vessel Make
- Grand Banks. Heritage. 54
So I decided to get away from the Miami are for a few weeks, last week we decided to visit the Keys. Had a beautiful trip down to Marathon at mostly trawler speeds and spent a number of nights at Faro Blanco a truly nice facility. Lobster mini season ended a few days before we arrived (good thing as that weekend it's a zoo in the Keys).
So we left the marina and the commercial lobsterman have set out their traps and there are zillions on them while we were at dock. I take my hat off to commercial fisherman as it's a hard life so I'm in their camp. BUT these guys put their traps with their floats right in the middle of the ICW which is perhaps 100 yards wide. So your trip becomes unpleasant because you are not using the auto pilot and your are constantly dodging the floats and the lines connecting to the trap. Granted the lines are fairly short so they don't extend more than a few feet from the trap. However many boats wrap these lines around their props and get cut off leaving ghost traps to continue to kill for many years.
I think it would make sense if Florida passed a law to restrict traps to outside 100 yards of the ICW. Granted the ICW is not well defined in some long stretches but all would benefit even the fisherman who would not loose expensive traps.
Rant off.
So we left the marina and the commercial lobsterman have set out their traps and there are zillions on them while we were at dock. I take my hat off to commercial fisherman as it's a hard life so I'm in their camp. BUT these guys put their traps with their floats right in the middle of the ICW which is perhaps 100 yards wide. So your trip becomes unpleasant because you are not using the auto pilot and your are constantly dodging the floats and the lines connecting to the trap. Granted the lines are fairly short so they don't extend more than a few feet from the trap. However many boats wrap these lines around their props and get cut off leaving ghost traps to continue to kill for many years.
I think it would make sense if Florida passed a law to restrict traps to outside 100 yards of the ICW. Granted the ICW is not well defined in some long stretches but all would benefit even the fisherman who would not loose expensive traps.
Rant off.