I don't suppose anyone accidently pulled my shrimp pot on Sunday south of Everett. It has a orange/yellow Triangle flag and a buoy marked with Simmons.

I know its a long shot. It really hacked me off. I had just bought it last week. I could have boughta lot of Shrimp for that $60 for the pot buoy and rope.

I bet it was that guy who brought in those 1800 shrimp. All the more reason that he should be penalized heavily.

Ouch man sorry to hear bout your pot being taken. A few years back when I was out crabbing over by Whidby Island we had 4 traps dissapear before we siad Funk this and stopped puttin out the other two we had left.

I try to stay near my pots. At lest with in binocular range. I watched one woman and her husband run over two or three pot lines in a twin engine 40 ft go fast boat while trying to pull their own pots. I have also picked up floats for crap pots a long way from where they where set. Maybe they where stolen maybe they got ran over or maybe (like me last year) you drifted in to deeper water while setting your pots with out noticing. Man they go down fast.

lonni which boat where you in. I was in that area sunday until 4 pm

There are a few senerios that could've led to the demise of your pots.

A couple of years ago some idiot thought it would be a good idea to troll downriggers thru all the pots in front of edmonds. I happened to be one of the lucky ones that found my pot more than a half mile away with a downrigger clip stuck in the rope.

I've seen people set pots so close together that there is no way to pull one without tangliing the other and if the wind or current takes you to deeper water while pulling the unlucky one will lose his pot for sure.

the currents can get pretty swift anywhere in puget sound and without enough weight your pot will drift... possibly to deeper water. If the tide changes are severe I usually double up on the lead.

or it could have been stolen...

Lonnie, how deep did you set the pot, was the pot weighted and how much line did you have. It's not at all uncommon for buoys to be sucked under if the pot drifts a little too deep. Pots will drift easily if not weighted. I usually put 10 to 15lbs in all my pots. You might go back to the same spot again on a low tide and find the pot. I had a buoy sucked under when I was first shrimping in Griffin Bay. I found it two days later and it was a mile from where I dropped it and the buoy was actually kinda shriveld from being under so long.

Sorry Lonnie, that same kind of crap happened to us in area 8-2 while crabbing. Our pots weren't stolen, but the crab were. How did we know? The pot was empty and we had been doing limits, but the telltale hint was a beer bottle in the pot.

I now keep the pots in front of our place just far enough away so I can see them with binoculars.

The thought of someone running over my line also crossed my mind. We searched high and Low down wind for the bouy but didn't see it. There were a lot of boats out there. I was trying to be very careful myself around other bouys to not run over any lines but it was certainly tight quarters with all the pots and boats. I think that I had plent of weight in the pots ~10#. and I had about 350 feet of line with a weight clipped on about 20-30' down. (which also makes me wonder how it could have gotten run over.

I think the lesson here is to make your Bouys highly distinguisable and keep a watch on them.

Wouldn't it be fun to catch the guy stealing it?

I thought about doing some shrimping, I've never done it before. One of my friends has lots of experience with it so I asked him what I needed to do and buy. He said to go to Costco and buy a bag of frozen shrimp, way less trouble and good eatin'. Too easy to lose pots to deep water or theives, it's a pain to pull them when deep, lots of bad things will happen.

Of course, you could say something similar about ALL forms of recreational fishing.

By all means, if you don't enjoy the activity, don't do it. You'll never be able to justify what you spend for what you get

But, unlike most other sports, at least you get to bring home SOMETHING (hopefully).