UPDATE: Ropeless Crab Traps by 2025

5-1-21 Update:  The bill has stopped for now... https://www.nationalfisherman.com/west-coast-pacific/california-ropeless-gear-bill-dies-without-a-hearing

Looks like they introduced a bill to require ropeless crab gear by 2025.  This will include recreational crabbers.  The way I read it, I'm not sure they will even allow time release buoys, as it specifies "active retrieval".

(g) Trap and pot fisheries in California and around the world still utilize 19th Century fishing technologies when 21st Century solutions such as ropeless gear are available. Ropeless gear, also known as “on-demand” or “buoyless” gear, is the only way to eliminate entanglement risk while permitting fishing to continue. The gear allows traps on the seafloor to be remotely called to the surface and removes the static vertical lines in the water column that entangle whales, sea turtles, and other animals.

Gear that includes vertical buoy line only during active deployment or retrieval of the gear may be allowed.

Seems like this will essentially end recreational crab traps?  I'm not sure how rings will be treated, as they technically also have a static buoy line. 

The tech for active ropeless retrieval is prohibitively expensive.  They know this, and even mention it in the bill, and are planning on "California innovation" to solve the issue.

(i) Varieties of ropeless fishing gear are available and being tested off the West and East Coasts of the United States and in Canada. Some fishers already fish without the use of static vertical buoy lines. However, logistical, technical, cost, and regulatory obstacles have hampered the widespread adoption of such gear in California fisheries.
(j) Numerous state and federal regulatory schemes, such as those relating to vehicle fuel economy and energy efficiency, use implementation deadlines to spur innovation and drive market forces towards better, less expensive, and more effective and efficient technologies. A date-certain requirement for the implementation of ropeless gear would spur such innovation and overcome obstacles to its adoption.
(k) California is a national and global leader in technological innovation, including green technology. By requiring the use of ropeless gear, California can be a leader in helping to develop and promote sustainable fishing gear that could be used to save whales, sea turtles, and other animals here and around the world.



https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB534

Since you can’t leave rings out to “soak” like a trap, they should not be affected.

Since you can’t leave rings out to “soak” like a trap, they should not be affected.

I would like to think so, but who knows.

The current acoustic release ropeless systems I've been looking at cost more than $1000 per pot, + the transmitter equipment cost.  They also sometimes fail, at which point you lose the pot/rope/buoy/$1000 release.  At that price, myself and most rec. crabbers will be stuck with snares and rings.

This is just plain bullshit.

Seems like quite the jump in restrictions considering they don't even require lead line. Have there been studies showing a large effect of recreational traps on whales and turtles?

Imagine the amount of lost gear from crabbers who will now try to work rings and hoop traps deeper than they're made to realistically crab. Better yet, imagine the combat crabbing clusterf%ck with all recreational crabbers now being relocated to ring trap depths.

Part of me hopes that this is just another well-intentioned, but poorly implemented idea. Unfortunately, between things like this and the recently proposed ban on bear hunting, it feels like a continuing march towards the demise of recreational sporting activities.

If you live here, call your assemblyman and let him know how you feel about his bill to destroy all forms of shrimping and crabbing in California.

If you live here, call your assemblyman and let him know how you feel about his bill to destroy all forms of shrimping and crabbing in California.

Thanks, Doug. I was trying to track down who introduced this bill.

The tech for active ropeless retrieval is prohibitively expensive.  They know this, and even mention it in the bill, and are planning on "California innovation" to solve the issue.

This is probably the heart of the issue, similar to 'no-emmissions vehicles legislature' to force change. 

I think the difference here is that the amount of money to be made in innovation here is low because, let's be honest, the target market is small.  I can see lower price-point commercial options being worth developing, but even if every recreational crabber in northern California bought 4 of some new traps you invented, there seems like a real chance you wouldn't ever really earn back your R&D cost on such a niche item whos costs will inevitably be higher than what we currently have.

My guess is innovation for folks like us will actually just create devices which technically skirt the rules one way or another.  So this is basically saying 'Yo we don't like this and you have 4 years to figure it out'.

Either way I am watching this with interest.  Ironically, and counter to the point I'm making, as soon as I saw this I thought 'OK time to start working with the people I know on a low-cost, low-tech, ropeless crab trap and make a mint during crab season 2025' haha.

Hope this doesn't go through, though I appreciate the sentiment behind it.  Sadly though when I read this, and when other people do on their ballots, it sounds entirely reasonable if you aren't familiar with the sport, so I'm guessing the folks who don't understand the nuances opinions will outweigh the crabbers unless some public education/lobbying is done.

It probably doesn't qualify as "on demand," but I wonder if galvanic releases come into play here. Not nearly as exact in terms of timing, but they seem like a middle ground in terms of rope/bouy control and cost to fishermen.

If you live here, call your assemblyman and let him know how you feel about his bill to destroy all forms of shrimping and crabbing in California.

Thanks, Doug. I was trying to track down who introduced this bill.

Rob Bonta

https://a18.asmdc.org/

The 70's were such a  better time to be an outdoors person.
It didn't cost an arm and a leg to go out and have fun.
You didn't have to have what amounts to a law degree to understand the regs.
Campsites were actually able to come by without a reservation. Spur of the moment camping was often and without any hassle.
I am glad to have been part of the spoiled bunch. We had it made.

The ocean will be littered with failed traps.  Imagine you have 100 traps that are being pulled and now imagine you have 30 traps that could never be pulled (either failed device or pop up at the wrong time when nobody is around to see it, or even traps that walked).   I am all about conservation, but what a stupid idea. 

The 70's were such a  better time to be an outdoors person.
It didn't cost an arm and a leg to go out and have fun.
You didn't have to have what amounts to a law degree to understand the regs.
Campsites were actually able to come by without a reservation. Spur of the moment camping was often and without any hassle.
I am glad to have been part of the spoiled bunch. We had it made.

I wasn't around for but a few months of the 70's, but I remember doing the same as a high school kid in the 90's. Pack your rods and camping gear Thursday night, grab some groceries afterschool on Friday and then hit the road for the weekend. We'd have a general idea of where we wanted to end up but we never had a reservation. $10 a night to camp, fish all weekend with your $25 fishing icense, and then come back just early enough on Sunday afternoon to unpack and finish your homework.

I certainly don't remember this "getting up at 4am to go online to try to get a camping reservation 6 months out" business. And when you do, you get to pay $50+ a night to sleep in a tent.

And while you're at it, get off of my lawn. 

The 70's were such a  better time to be an outdoors person.
It didn't cost an arm and a leg to go out and have fun.
You didn't have to have what amounts to a law degree to understand the regs.
Campsites were actually able to come by without a reservation. Spur of the moment camping was often and without any hassle.
I am glad to have been part of the spoiled bunch. We had it made.

Plus there were ALOT more fish  to catch! And Crabs

Scotty