crab traps

I want to get some crabs from my yak. I have a Cobra Triple so the traps don't necessarily have to be collapsible or compact. I haven't used crab traps before and need some advice.  I found some on Craigslist. Are these good? If not what do I need.

I would love to make it out for the Sonoma/Southern Mendocino crab/ab/ling overlap and have a camping/seafood buffet. 


http://sacramento.craigslist.org/boa/886424299.html

Those traps look a little flimsy to me?  The 2'x2'x10" trap on sale goes for $20.00 at my local Pro Sports store, it's all metal and wrapped with molded rubber.  Good crabbing to ya.

Nice traps even brand new run about the same price. Think Danielson traps.

Z

$40 here in Seattle for a trap, 75' of leaded line, buoy, and a bait bag.

 

Those traps on CL are also being sold on the Sniffer site. They might be OK to use off a pier. And the (assumed) light weight would be a bonus for a kayak crabber. But they do look a little flimsy.
Those Danielson square folding traps are pretty light---I've got one. But they are not good quality. You also need to add significant weight to keep them on the bottom. And you have to weight the doors/ramps.

Those Danielson square folding traps are pretty light---I've got one. But they are not good quality. You also need to add significant weight to keep them on the bottom. And you have to weight the doors/ramps.

Hm, I guess you've had trouble w/ these traps? I've had the setup like the pic above and they've worked just fine for the last two years. I suspect the doors are fine since I pull up full pots. Would be interested to hear about what's happened for you.

Z

I haven't really had a problem with the Danielson squares either.  They're not as heavy duty as the cushman rubber coated octagons of similar construction but they've done their job.  I don't weight the doors either, they do leak but so long as you got enough bait in there to keep the crabs happy they'll stick around, especially on short soaks.  They do need a got 10+ lbs to keep em in place though. 

I have my pots weighted with 15 pounds of steel construction spikes and rigged with a 25' topshot of leaded line and a hundred foot shot of blue steel to fish water up to a hundred feet......its overkill, the rope is worth more than the pot and rigging was a pain. The rope does coil nicely in the boat though 

If you're gonna do short soaks from the yak go with the collapsable pots chuck uses and rig em up with a low cost nylon rope. Danielsons on the yak can be a clusterf. 

Using any available wire, I secure three sides of my trap permanatley, leaving the fourth side with an easy to remove tie.  That way as I sleep at night I don't have visions of my traps with their sides down flappin in the current.

Anyone have photos of how and where they put escape rings on the Promar 102s?

THE BEST info for crabbing; the crab tutorial on  www.coastsidefishingclub.com . I went from 3 crabs in 4 pots to 70 crabs in 6 pots after reading the tutorial. Of course that was when I had a P/B with an electronic puller. Just fallow the instructions for the danialson pots and you will catch crab.