GoPro in crab trap 1.3 Things Heat Up! Secrets of Crabbing 

I like it! We call this the Emerald Sea so inside the cage can be Emerald City. I am not gonna imitate those voices these days, though...

Will do!

Soon! Soon!

Yep, doors are a place to start! I snipped off the horizontals on two doirs as my first test when the season opened this past weekend... and my outboard quit right after I dropped. Been working on that but will check video to see if the one male that climbed in during the short drop had any door issues. I'll be testing door decoration, too, with colors. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! I'll talk about adding mesh in the next video. Spoiler alert, the Fish & Wildlife folks say it's against gear regs to use a smaller mesh even just on the doors.

Yes, that's a good idea that I've discussed on here and will be testing this upcoming season along with a different style bait holder that will take up less room. The canned bait has lasted much longer than the cameras can run, so that's not an issue, at least with these tests. The balance I'm looking for is letting them get plenty of access to the bait so they stay interested and keep the scent spreading while also keeping the great majority of bait bits concentrated in the trap so they have to enter. Happy crabbing down south!

@@BobsUnderwaterCrabHouse-so2wo that sounds like a heck of a plan! After watching this series, letting them get to the bait has changed my thinking for sure. The bait trail created by the red rock crab had to have brought in crabs from a fairly long distance. 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀. You’ve gained a subscriber!

ta failte romhat! I've seen schools of a zillion mackerel while diving off Kilkee, so I'm sure you've a good steady supply

Thanks, Dan! I'll definitely tell my Irish crabbing story in one of the upcoming longer videos. Best of luck with the retirement plan. I have the same one. Was always jealous of the Kilkee restaurant owner who'd head out with his scuba kit and spear each morning. We always knew what the day's special was when he climbed back out. I don't think spearfishing was allowed in the bay, but nobody minded too much since he only took one a day and we knew it was fresh.

Thanks UK Jay! More soon, hopefully tomorrow. Got caught up filming whales and celebrating St. Paddy's.

Thanks for taking the time to throw the ideas out there, @mooser6309! Look thru the comment discussions and you'll see quite a few folks thinking along the same lines. All good ideas. Some, like the chicken wire, won't work because there's a minimum mesh size for regulations. The fin to make the trap act more predictably in the current is definitely a solution I'm going to try. Sheet metal not the best material because of the plastic line used to pull up the trap. With even just one camera in there, let alone the two I'm planning for, the trap becomes pretty valuable. I wouldn't want to risk cutting the line on metal. The two cameras will likely make the current direction issue moot, but it'll be interesting to try anyway.

Fuggedabowdit

Oh there's some different stuff coming, including things along those lines! I'm going to have to split the channel into crabbing info and other crabby content. I guess it will be different playlists... And two cameras plus 360 coming. Maybe three cameras for the classic sitcom version.

The regulations talk about a minimum size for the steel mesh and doesn't have allowances for different parts like doors or bottoms. It would be a solution to that issue, but I don't think it would be allowed. I think the easiest solution is to get rid of the horizontals. I'll be testing that first day the season opens. Thanks for watching!

@@BobsUnderwaterCrabHouse-so2wo Well damn, I didn't know the regulations. I think removing the horizontals is a great idea though. Someone else commented suspending the bait. If this is allowed it would create more floor space. The people need "Crab Thunderdome"!!! LOL 😂

Yep! I have to think of how the camera view will be, too, so I'm going to try both putting the bait on the ceiling and just making a smaller bait cage. It only has to be a little bit bigger than the can, so that will free up space on the dance floor.

Popular idea in the comments! Issues are that the current would push open the downcurrent doors and that there are regulations about the trap having a minimum mesh size everywhere. I'm going to cut out the horizontal bars and see if that helps. Commercial traps and even more expensive recreational traps have doors with no horizontals.. so could be an easy fix. Those other traps have ramps that the crabs have to navigate, though, so my idea may make it easier for them to escape. I'm going to weight the new style doors, so hoping they'll perform about the same as far as escapes. Thanks for watching!

More vertical bars would likely make the mesh too small for regs, though.

Thanks! I'm going to try to get the rest of this drop up tomorrow.

I've been there! What a beautiful strand in Doonbeg. And a great little pub near the water. Cant recall the name right now, but I remember their excellent fish. I still have family in Derrynane, Kerry, and used to have some on Valentia Island. Friends in Clare, etc. Been over many times, but not in a few years. Dublin was going crazy last time I was there. Could barely shoulder my way to the bar in a few places! Nice to meet ya and hope to take you up on the offer someday! All the best

Yeah, good idea. definitely worth testing! I'm thinking maybe hardware cloth. I've added a little weight to doors before because it seemed like I wasn't getting as many as I thought I should and maybe they were getting out. So I don't think the weight of some hardware cloth would be a factor. I'll be doing my next test drops next month. I have the rest of this one and a few more to go through first.

Ikr? I’ve never crabbed, likely will never crab, but that door design is driving me nuts.

100%! I've used one for killer whales and spawning salmon, but never something that had to focus this close. I designed a mount for one that can be positioned inside or outside a trap and it'll be something I'll test in the next few months. I'm a little concerned about distortion. I do like the wide angle non-360 view... so another answer would be two cameras at opposite corners. Thanks for watching!

Ha. Yeah, you'll probably hear me slip back and forth. When I write about them it's correct to add the S, but I agree it sounds better without it. And it would definitely raise eyebrows in my favorite shore town bars to say "crabs"

I've never used those, but my understanding is that for the tracker to work a phone with Bluetooth on would have to be in range. So, it would work if a lost trap's float stayed above water and wherever it drifted off to was in range. This is assuming they're waterproof and can stand up to saltwater. If so, then it would work under those limited range circumstances. But a tag wouldn't do anything for a trap float run over because it was set in a busy boat lane or not weighted and carried off somewhere not within, I think, max 100 meters of anybody's cellphone. Better to set them right and haul them in time. Good thought, though, and it would work within limits. It's making me think about adding a Bluetooth tracker to a buoy flag (to keep it high out of the water) on pots I set with valuable cameras inside just in case. Thanks!