Was walking the Edmonds water front on Sunday. Happened to walk the fishing peir as well. As we walked back down the dock, a ferry took off, and what do I see on the other side, but about 50 bouys for shrimp pots.

What gives, or is this the comercial/indian pre sport rape???

Are you sure they were shrimp buoys? I wondered about that a while ago myself, so I asked around and found out that it is a dive park. Hopefully someone else can confirm that.

He He ...

Those aren't trap buoys at all. Those are markers for the underwater diver's playground. They are there 24/7/365.

Somehow, I don't think anyone could mistake the Edmonds Underwater Parker for a mess of "shimp pot buoys." Please tell me that's not what you are referring to.

But, if so, that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while!

Here's my review of the Edmonds Underwater Parker, for those scuba divers that are interested. I've only dove the Parker about 250 times.

http://staff.washington.edu/parker/scuba/reviews/edmondsuwpark.html

The commercial shrimpers usually start about April 1st, so they can get their tonnage in before any sport pots hit the water for their 80 shrimp limit. Sport guys used to go first, but the commercials changed that.

Normally, the commercial set-up just have two buoys with a bunch of pots strung together, with each boat running several strings.

You can check to Edmonds transit moorage to see if its full of commercial shrimp boats.

Last week there was no shimp bouys that I saw, however there was a gill netter working right up against the front of the marina for several days. I assume it was an indian boat and man they worked that area over pretty hard.

OK, so I am a GOMER. Happens to the best.

What got me going was the tribal boat next to the sling just north of the bait shack. Had a pot puller on it, but no pots on the deck. There were spot shrimp antenia in the bottom of the boat, and his live wells were working.

Funny cause my girlfriend said that it was the park as well. Should have listened.

are you going to tell her she was right?

Each tribal boat has 100 pots strung in long lines between two buoys. They are working right in front of the Edmonds waterfront. The marina usually will have 5 or 6 commercial boats and they usually have Alaskan homeports . Last shrimp season there were 6 Alaskan commercial boats working for the one indian woman. The wholesaler in Bothell has their truck there loading it full of fresh shrimp. The sports guys will get the leaving...or scraps if you will when it opens for us. The tribes want to get the shrimp to market before BC. Thanks to the Rafeedie decision they get atleast 50% of the shrimp before the rest of us get a shot at them in our curtailed season.

So Grandpa I assume the boat I saw was setting shimp pot sets between their two big red bouys. They had several sets going for those couple of days. Withthat tender running around I assumed they were netting.

Saturday morning NE side of Hat Island the tribe were working it. What I want to know is what are the dark green and black bouys that were on the south side of hat from 90 foot depth to 200+ foot. Approximately ten of them scattered around.

I think the yellow bouy is on one end of the long line and the red one on the other end...Wait until the sports pots start showing up out in front of Edmonds..the tribes just set theirs in a big line right on top of any wports gear in their way...then they drag the whole mess up with their hydraulic winches ripping the sports pots apart....What a country!!!

Yea I told she was right!!

She thought it was funny that I got the hammer on the WWW.

How do you know what 50% is is the big question for me??????

They pretty much guess what our half is, it usually ends up being the scaps that fall off the table.

I have a friend that lost his sets last year to the indian sets over the top of his. This was on the last day of the season.

The next morning he went out and dripped his downrigger ball down 50 feet. He trolled around the GPS cooredinates that he had set and low and behold the downrigger snagged something. After fashioning a gaff and sending it down the cablehe pulls up his pot. When he got his pot in the boat, he notices another line around it and trailing overboard. 3 1/2 hours later he has his pot and 13 indian pots on his back deck.