salt action from delmarva

[tear-em-up]

Heres some of the fun salt water stuff from the delmarva penisuladay 1 trotlining crabsday2day3 day4

[Redge]

Very nice, curious about trot lining for crabs, how does that work?

[tear-em-up]

Very nice, curious about trot lining for crabs, how does that work?

You got a wieght on one end with a rope 25ft or so up to float (i use 3 gallon jugs)then 25ft or so rope down to a piece chain about 2ft long like 1 1/2" links then your main line is 1/4"nylon I have 1200 ft then same thing on other end. We use chicken necks for bait tied on every 4 ft or so ( we get chic necks dirt cheap from friend at local poultry plant)use can use salted eels cut in 3" pcs too . When you run it you ride up beside 1st bouy and lift line on the chain side of bouy into a roller or jig that hangs of boat down about 6" off water you then ride slowly down the line with net and dip em off , they can be tricky its takes some skill to be a good dipper when you get to chain on other end you flip the line off the roller with net handle sort out or cull em as we say as your riding back to do again. These crabs came out of 7 to 8 ft sometimes they real shallow 2 or 3 ft sometimes we get em 15 or 16 ft . Blue crabs have to be 5" point to point across there back in july it always go to 5 1/4" . Blue crabs are very fast swimmers and can dart off line quik. My wife is very good at it but she does have shorter arms then me so i can get the ones that dart away good . takes a good driver too can be done alone with boat set up rite

[tear-em-up]

Believe it or not the line if put in barrel rite just comes out while driving after dropping 1st bouy we use them brass spring loaded dog clips on each end to the chain when you get to end you just feed out line with chain and other bouy then drop wieght with out stretching too tight you want line to come up in roller at about a 45 degree angle if its to tite crabs will fall off way ahead before you can get em . My wieght are 5 pcs of 1foot long steel bar about 1 1/2" dia welded together with 1 foot pc of chain coming off welded on to top . I believe this practice is pretty unique to the chesapeake bay area when its good its fun last year yr it was poor most of yr but seem better there not running up the bay past choptank to good yet though we got these in the Tangier sound area

[Redge]

Thanks Tear! I figured you would have to be pretty fast on the net! That was the part I didn't have figured out.

[tear-em-up]

I'll try to get some pics of the rig and maybe a video (Im kinda low tech tho)this week, supposed to go Mako shark fishing sat but offshore forcast not good so mite be on bay of delmarva crabbing again.Do you guys run catfish lines out there. My dad used to run codfish trotlines in ocean in the 60's . they use line lines on the bottom 50 or so miles off here to commercial fish for tile fish and they get grouper too out in 400 500 ft

[Redge]

Yep, ever since I was a kid we have ran trot lines for catfish. Biggest I remember us catching was a 65# catfish. Catch lots of cats. Use perch that we catch on fly rods or in traps, sldo fresh shad !

[JET4]

It's been years since I trot lined for crabs, sure was fun. I need to get out and do it again.

[shadow]

What kind of fish is that in the first picture? I recognize the flounder and crabs and the choclate lab OF COURSE, (My favorite lab) but I don't recognize the other fish. Thanks for the pictures and story.

[tear-em-up]

Those thick black ones are called tautog they live in rocky struture shipwrecks and stuff very good to eat have large square teeth kinda look like rabbit teeth used for crunching shells of the crabs and mussels they eat , they can be tricky to hook and fight really hard once hooked.