www.kellys-stuff.com

Tied at the commercial fish dock in Yarmouth, ME.

Lost Traps and Other Conflicts

Not all fishermen are exactly what I call “friendly”.

I say this because of all the little nasty things you find with your gear. Not everyone finds it but nearly everyone has some minor problems.

Quite often it is just a buoy cut off with a knife or possibly a string of traps with the ground line cut but people do lose complete strings of traps.

It really isn’t uncommon to have someone come alongside and call you all sort of names accusing you of molesting gear or hauling gear or some other problem they are having or possibly just think they are having with their gear.

I do know I have traps cut every year. Every year I call the DMR (Department of Marine Resources) and every year they can’t catch anyone. I did finally give up on that. It isn’t totally that the DMR isn’t doing their job it is that it is nearly impossible to catch someone molesting gear. In the fog there is actually no way to

To contact me:

E-mail: kelly@kellys-stuff.com

I recently changed web hosts and am working on getting all aspects of my site up and running.

 

Probably not too important to my visitors but what actually happened is I backed up the site but for some reason it contained a virus and needed to be deleted.

 

I was left with no choices other than just leave it down or begin all over.

 

Thanks for your patience.

tell what gear anyone is hauling. Lines are cut and traps picked and no one can see. Therefore there is never any proof. The average fisherman knows very well that nobody wins if people cut other people’s gear. Once it starts everyone loses. Innocent and guilty alike. So overall there is very little real molesting of gear. A trap or two here or there is quite common with most fishermen losing a buoy or two almost daily. Some from boats and some from someone that is just having a bad day and cuts your buoy off. It isn’t good but as I said, if everyone starts cutting you can lose in the thousands of dollars so most reputable fishermen do not cut gear.

In my years fishing I have seen boats sunk, set adrift, and even had guys that have had so many traps cut off that they had to get out of the business. Like the bad apple in the barrel, one fisherman can make the lives of many very miserable. Usually sooner or later someone will get enough evidence to go after the guy and really mess him up.

Some fishermen won’t wave and some even show aggression by coming close and making a big wake to roll your boat while your working. Like any job there are all types of people. The majority are just out there trying to make a living.