trotline crabbing

[keakar]

Originally Posted by AceArcher

I ran trotlines for crabs up in maryland. They have a lot less crabs up there in the chesapeake than we do down here so it makes sense to cover a huge area.. With that said.... its a good bit of work to do this. Personally it's to easy to catch a boat load of them down here in drop nets or handlines.

But if your still interested here is a link with detailed instruction on how to build one, how to set it, how to run it, and suggestions on what to use for bait. http://www.bluecrab.info/crabbing/trotline.html

pm me if you get hung up on anything and need some advice.

thanks, I printed that out. lots of great info there.

ya, I think im gonna try it because with my bad back im trying to avoid all the bending over the side and hand over hand pulling of set nets .

I haven't found crabs all that plentiful to be able to reliably catch more then a dozen of em on the spot when desired so I figure covering more ground I think should make catching "enough" faster then spending time working a dozen set nets over and over.

heck if I get a dozen crabs I be happy but I would like to get at least a half bushel to a bushel when I put the effort into going crabbing.

I got some 1/4" galvanized chain, would that be heavy enough to use or should I go with 5/16"? or better yet whats the total weight of it im looking for?

also should I add small weights along the line every so often like every 100ft?

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

My PaPa had 2 pa-lons over 1,000' long in Lake Des Allemands. He caught a lot of crabs back in the day. Never went with him but I do know that he used salted beef lips because he could use them.over and iver and they lasted a long time.

where do you get those bull lips and what do locals call em? im sure Cajuns have their own name for em.