What would you do???

[nicerack]

I was offshore Sunday working an area with a few other boats, one comes by, nice sporty.. bunch of guys on her looking like they are having a good time.. trolls right past nice stern shot and I see the name. A while later, she is next to a pot and dead in the water.. figure they are pulling mahi off the ball..then I see the ball go over the rail into the cockpit!! as we make way toward the boat, we see her backing down then pulling away... looks like they are wrapped or snagged on the pot?? I tried to hail the boat and see if they are ok, we get a little closer and the sporty starts to pull away.. seemed to be on one motor!? they make it off a ways and shut down.. now I am next to the pot and the highflyer is laying over, from my tower I can see it is adrift! so is the pollyball & about 80 feet of wrope!!! I made a hard turn, so as not to wrap up in the now drifting gear! Now here is the question... "The MAN" just lost a high flyier, pollyball and who knows how much gear 450 feet below!! I took the Numbers - know the boat name.. some commercial operation just suffered a financial hit becouse a sporty got to close to the gear! What would you do?? I know what I did. I want to know what you guys would do???

[reel fool]

You could certainly contact the commercial boat, but they did not neccesarily lose gear. That set of pots has floats on each end of the string. they are likely to lose their high flier & polly ball(s), but they should be able to retrieve their gear from the other end.

[aprilfool]

how do you know he ran over the gear? alot of times the lobster guys are putting a long legnth of poly line on the hi flyers so sport boats get wrapped up when they pass by.

[Glenn W]

I think I'd mind my own business instead of being the busybody of the Canyon

[Fast Forward]

Hopefully that guy learned his lesson and will stay clear in the future. I have commercial fished bass and lobster pots. Never left gear out to get caught in someones wheels. Even if both ends were lost we would pull a grapple hook perpendicular to the rig. The poly line floats and we would catch it in between pots. We would have to man handle it to get to one end but if the rig is still where it was set, we would get it back.

[teddyp]

how do you know he ran over the gear? alot of times the lobster guys are putting a long legnth of poly line on the hi flyers so sport boats get wrapped up when they pass by.

Why would a commercial guy want his gear wrapped in someones wheels? I know they don't want people to tie up to their gear over night but I have never heard of someone putting gear out to try to foul up someone.

[rarhomes]

Why would a commercial guy want his gear wrapped in someones wheels? I know they don't want people to tie up to their gear over night but I have never heard of someone putting gear out to try to foul up someone.

10-4, nobody's gonna waste gear.

Capt Rick

[SharkJP]

I think I'd mind my own business instead of being the busybody of the Canyon

classic glenn

[seapower]

Guess it would be different if the "commercial guy" came along and "set" through the fleet of guy's sportfishing ? Heard that complaint many times, myself. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Put the shoe on the other foot! Yes I know you can retrieve gear with a grappling hook, but it's not as easy as you'd think. Depth of water, current, bottom condition's may still equal gear lost. It's a matter of respect, "do unto other's", remember that? Frank

[teddyp]

I think it was an honest mistake. If he was pulling the pot or cutting off gear just to cut it off then you might say something but this sounds like a simple mistake. You don't want to make the Capt's life harder. The commercial guys don't deal with things like you and I do, they tend to be a little extreme. I know someone that was threatend to be "Zooed" by a commercial guy. I don't know what "Zooed" is but it sounds bad.