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Originally Posted by StinkyMatt
What is better for lobster incoming or outgoing tides?
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If I'm hooping outside a breakwall I like the incoming tide as it pushes the scent from my nets into the rocks, If I' hooping the inside I like a receding tide. Ends of breakwalls can also be good when the tide is moving out. In open water current is more important then tides. You want to determine which way the current is moving on the bottom and place your nets up-current above the structure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StinkyMatt
Beginning of the tide change, middle or at the end?
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I generally like to paddle out during slack tides and hoop moving tides. Water movement is good. I especially like big swells with a strong surge when hooping. Watch for a pattern.... depending on conditions bugs end up in certain areas, learn the conditions how bugs respond to them and hoop those areas.
As a rule of thumb bugs leave rocks early in the evening to search for food, then come back to their rocks later in the night. You want your nets there by the rocks when they are either coming out or going back in. I'm not going to tell you what times to be there you have to figure that out, but I will say that often at certain times of the night it's completely dead, then you usually get a wave of small bugs then larger ones as they come through. So you have to wait it out and match their schedule, and if it's been slow and you start getting a bunch of shorts don't stop hooping..
Quote:
Originally Posted by StinkyMatt
How long do you soak?
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30 minutes on average. I run five nets, take a watch, pull the first net after 30 to 40 minutes in and after that pull a net every five minutes. I like to run my nets in a chain so I'm paddling in a line up current. I pick up the float, paddle an additional ten or so feet to get over the net, tighten the rope up and start the pull on a up-swell as the yak rises. Check it then drop, it back down, as quick as I can and as close as possible to the same place it was. I then paddle to the next one, and do it again. At the end of the chain I check my watch, have a drink, drift back down securing or sorting any bugs I have got, then paddle to the start of the chain and start over. I like to run the nets in the same locations only moving them maybe five six feet at a time to take advantage of the scent that I already have in the water. That said if I'm getting a lot of bugs in one area I'll move my nets close together in that area. I other words I start with a long chain with widely spaced nets then end up with a shorter one or bunched up nets as the night goes on.
Hopefully that will give you some things to think about.
Jim