Since the opening of stone crab season, Sugarloaf Sound and Turkey Basin have become obstacle courses of floating buoys. The waters abound with recreational crab traps hoping to catch those delicious claws. Not to be left out of the hunt, we purchased a kit of five traps from Cudjoe Sales, a fishing license, and the bait, hogs feet, from the fish market. The following day, we assembled the traps in the garage.
The assembly went smoothly and in no time we had our five traps ready for the concrete, rope and buoys.
Hmm, nothing in there yet. Especially without bottoms. The trap bottom is made with concrete. We lined the traps, sitting on plastic garbage bags, on the driveway, poured the concrete in the bottom of each one, smoothed it out and let it cure. Before the concrete set, I wrote my name in the concrete for ID purposes. Poaching crab traps is taken very seriously down here!
Zuzu and Tootie were ready to head out on the boat. But first, Zuzu was eyeing Rusty the Iguana (so named by our neighbors) who was sunning himself on the rock while two other green iguanas were noshing on blades of grass. I guess the flowers on our neighbor's Hibiscus are not quite sweet enough.
Once the concrete cured and the rope and buoy were tied to each trap, it was time to load them up, head out and find a spot in the Sound and set the traps.
Puttering out our canal and across the shallow water, we eyed possible locations for our traps.
To start, we decided on a spot just inside the main channel. It's only about 3 feet deep here, probably a bit too shallow, but we'll give it a try and see what we can catch.
Zuzu and Tootie were a great help finding a spot and keeping an eye out for other boats. Once we set the traps, we took them for a quick boat ride. They like to go fast and smell the salt air. After our quick tour, we puttered back across the shallows into the sun towards our canal.
Zuzu is always on watch while Tootie was wondering where her blanket went. I guess she was ready for another nap.
Stay tuned. Zuzu and Tootie will go back out with us next week to pull the traps.
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