what to do about thieves and idiots?

[magster65]

I went to pull our crab traps last night and some... some... (quick, I need a profanity)... (insert profanity here) for brains had dropped a trap right next to ours... no big deal right? He had at least a hundred feet more rope than he needed and the rope was floating. I ran right over it... rope on the shaft and prop. The ocean is too cold to jump in so we ended up cutting off what we could and limped back to the harbor. To make matters worse someone had stolen our crab harvest and were cruising off into the sunset as we scrambled to cut the stinkin' rope off my prop. I have no patience or sympathy for thieves and idiots. I saw evidence of both last night.<br />Anyone have any ideas for booby trapping a crab trap? I need something to scare those jerk-offs into a new hobby other than theft.

 

[roscoe]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Tape some road flares and an old alarm clock together, then tie them about 5 feet down on your rope.

 

[mellowyellow]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

an attatched sign on buoy saying "protected"<br />this trap is part of the tracking system and any<br />movement will be automatically detected by the<br />system's satellite GPS. violators will be prosecuted<br />to the full extent of the law. (close)<br />this worked well for a pal in Boston. he never said,<br />but implied that his traps were under local gov't<br />control. no one ever touches his traps anymore.

 

[Scoop]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Not too bad an idea. Could make a little LED flashing circuit, they don't use much energy so you could seal it in Epoxy. That is what they do for underwater mine batteries. Use a dual color LED, red ang green with a mercury switch. When moved enough the mercury switch could swtich the red side on making it look like the trap was being tracked. Whatever you do, don't hurt or kill the guy, then it will be worse for you.

 

[Homerr]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

A shotgun blast below the water line comes to mind....<br /><br />What an Arse-hole!<br /><br />I like the LED idea. Would be real simple to make too. Get yourself (or make) an antenna to put on the floats too. Would really look authentic then.<br /><br />LOL on the flares and alarm clock! Be your luck however....The Coast Guard would think you were a terrorist and sink your boat. <br /><br />H.

 

[Jack Shellac]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

We have the same problem down here with people stealing crab traps or contents. Unfortunately, no one has come up with an easy solution. I watch the Vietnamese crabbers in front of my house and they patrol their trap lines 24 hrs per day. They have gradually worked their way up over the years from an old wooden skiff to a diesel powered launch. Whatever else they may be, they're hard workers. If you slow down approaching one of their traps, you'll see that launch start to turn and the black smoke coming from the stack as they give it the gas coming towards you.

 

[roscoe]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Believe it or not, we have a lot of immigrants in Wisconsin. Some are part of a US State Dept program, some are not. Anyway, half of them are the hardest backbreaking laborers you ever saw. The other half are in school learning how to get even better jobs. Our immigrant forefathers were probably the same; But we have just gotten soft and complain a lot, myself included.

 

[Scoop]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

I have to agree. We have a lot Hmong here. They ar extremely hard working and honest. Every day I go by a garden they rent and plant so they can sell vegetables at the farmers market. They work every day on it and I could only dream of having anything half as good. Of course, there are no crabs here, except for me.

 

[Ross J]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

We found that there were thieves around our cray pots, solved it by placing fish hooks about 5 feet below the bouy. Sure sent them packing. The local doctor knows me and he said he'd tell me if anybody came in with fish hooks embedded in their fingers. Hasn't happened yet but I reckon there's one thief as we lost only one pot since then.<br />Ross

 

[Homerr]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Jeeees Ross!<br /><br />How midevil! I love it!<br /><br />H.

 

[snapperbait]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Ah-Ha... I was thinking about putting out some stone crab traps and these ideas will come in very handy... I really like the LEDs and antennas, and the trebble hook about 5 feet down..

 

[golfer]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Theft is a hot point for me...I say, rent some scuba gear, wait for them to take your property, then drag them into the water from their boat and cut their f'ing hands off...

 

[magster65]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Thank you. I'm going with the hooks or something sharp on the rope, I like the idea of them injuring themselves at thier own hands. It'll make them think twice before stealing someone elses catch if they see a little blood and I don't think this little eye opener is getting too carried away. We'll see.

 

[ndemge]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

A hook in the finger will not disable or cause any permanent harm to the theives, but it will hurt like a BIZATCH!<br /><br />I'd say go for it!

 

[ahollinger]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Had a friend named Gus (Name changed to protect the insane) who was just a few fries short of a happy meal. Years ago he soldered a couple large fish hooks to the back of his radio in his Chevy C-20. Figured that might stop the thieves One night I heard the cops outside the apartment. I went outside figuring they were here to arrest Gus again. Outside I found Gus standing with a couple of our town’s best, all of them looking at a pair of legs hanging out of the cab of the truck. I figured Gus had finally gone and killed somebody, so I went for a closer look. A rather scared teenager was lying on the floorboard with his hand up under the dash. I smiled.<br /><br />One of the officers was explaining to Gus that this was considered booby trapping and the kid could press charges against him. Gus was neither happy nor sober, and tried real hard to control his temper.<br /><br />Under supervision he had a short discussion with the kid. It was something to the effect of “If you don’t press charges for the booby trap, I won’t press charges for attempted theft”. The kid added a condition to the agreement that he would get help getting his hand unstuck. And they agreed.<br /><br />In front of God and all Gus grabbed the kid’s arm and yanked. I have never heard a scream like that, nor do I ever want to hear it again. What came out did not look like a hand. The bloody mess looked more like fresh hamburger meat.<br /><br />The kid began screaming about having Gus arrested for all this, but our fine constables all agreed that Gus had fulfilled his end of the agreement.<br /><br />All in all it made for an interesting night. But I learned booby traps aren’t the way to go.

 

[Scoop]

Re: what to do about thieves and idiots?

Spider John, you are correct. I took a tour of the Manhattan morgue museum. It is not open to th public, but it there for reference for the Medical examiners. They had a gate there and pictures. A store owner had been robbed so many times, that he set a trap. He attached the gate to the bottom of a skylight shaft in his store. He wired the gate to an outlet. The reason t was in the morgue museum, is that the thief was killed when he entered the store. The store owner went to prison. There have been other instances of this also.<br /><br />My opinion is that when someone is in the act of stealing someone's property, they have taken away your rights and thus should forfeit their rights. thus is they broke in and are hurt or killed, then that's tough. They made the same decision a drunk driver makes when they take that second drink knowing they are going to drive home. <br /><br />The prosecution argument in the booby trapping case is usually that any possessions value is not worth a human life. In addition, other points that are made are that this endangers emergency services workers.