old man had exactly the same thing happen to him marc! but his best was pulling pots ages ago in gero - was just before christmas , pulled a blank besides a small mount franklin bottle inside... inside the bottle was a note - "tnx for the crays - merry christmas" even he laughed i think hahahaha

hahaha, pretty shit form!!

me and 2 mates did a shore dive from a certain rockwall 2 years ago. heaps of recs put their pots along this edge, and out at the tip of this rockwall, and there is a good ledge less than 75m from here, where we can bag out on crays at the right time of year.

because it is only shallow here, our bottom time is quite long, and this particular (early) morning, we could hear small boats buzzing around us above for ages. it took us an hour to surface from our dive, and we all caught more than our limit of crays. the second i popped my head above water back at the rockwall, i heard some bogan fwit say "give me back our fucken crays c#*t"....

apparantly, because we were divers, these absolute bogan fwits thought that we were not allowed in the same area as their pots. also, as they had caught sweet f.a., they thought we had raided their pots. bogan number 1 in the boat, had dropped bogans numbers 2 and 3 off on the rocks, and they waited for us, watching our bubble trails. i reckon they were actually either cray deckies or pros, as they were wearing full wet gear, rubber gloves, rubber overalls, etc, and they had a pot tipper on their 4m tinny - not your average recreational cray setup. they were so fucken arrogant, and were shouting at us to "give them back their fucken crays". i told them to fuck off, and started unstrapping my tanks/bc/etc. these dickheads want to roll, and i'm up for it, however i just have to get this extra 25kg of gear off my back.... the other boys didnt know what the hell was goin on, but followed my lead. we were kind of stuck though, as they were standing on the rocks directly above us, and they had the obvious advantage of us being in the water. i remember thinking at the time "i wonder how much damage i could do if i belted him in the face with my crayloop"........

 after a few minutes of heated verbal exchanges, they eventually got back in their boat, and sped off. we got out and de-kitted, filtered out the biggest crays and chucked the others back. in hindsight, i would have loved to throttle them there and then, but it would have been too hard with the scuba gear on, and climbing up limestone rocks in freediving fins isnt an easy feat!! it definately got the heart rate goin at 6.30 in the morning though.

Got a story of my own here. Me and a few mates went and fished the rock wall at Dongra

Lots of cray pots along side the rockwall , we all managed to fish around them without a drama.

At around 6am some guy walks past, doesnt say hi and looked like a tool to say the least.

All he had was a massive handline. We were all having a chuckle that he was going to try fish fron the rockwall with a hand line.

He stood pretty much inline with one of the pots, took out the handline . We noticed that he had a ball big sinker and a massive hook. He proceeded to spin the sinker/hook combo around like a windmill as hard as he could and went to cast at the cray pot float to snag it so he could pull in in.

Now for the best bit, as he flung it out as hard as he could, the hook went strait into the back of his leg!!!!!

He then came over and asked us for a ride to the hospitle because it was so far into his leg. Absolute gold!

I used to shore dive Gero every morning before school for the first couple of months of cray season.

Alternating between New Marina wall and Just opposite Retravision. There was an old Italian bloke that thought he owned that patch of reef. We were nowhere near his pots but he still felt the need to row over and let us know they were his crays.

One morning he decided to threaten us with his old bait knife. Not very intimidating when you are 14 years old and armed with a speargun but still more trouble than it was worth.

Next morning we decided to head over to the Marina wall instead of facing the old bloke again. That day he managed to capsize his dinghy and wasnt able to swim to shore. We might of been able to help him if we were there.

Going back quite a few years there was a German chap who had his car set alight in the carpark after he was spotted by a resident who lives up on the hill using a telescope, pulling someone elses pots. The resident called the pots owner and he went down and set the fire. Another boatie let the German know his car was burning but it was too late to save it. Bugger, he was later extradited to Germany for robbing banks on his recent trips over there.

Not so far back a couple of "fishermen" waved down a crayboat then flashed their fisheries badges so they could come on board. Sitting on the deck were three amateur pots, gone. They lost three pots off their licence instantly [worth $27.000 each then] and booked a date with the magistrate .

Sitting up on the Quinns water tank tower was another fisheries officer using a big telescope and radio to spy on them after reports of them pulling other pros pots. Expensive days fishing.

I don't get it that a pro has to pull amateur pots,

Throw the book at them, greedy pricks

 Seen a guy punch a hole in a guys boat below the water line with an axe at hillarys. Supposibly been pulling his pots, thought that was a good one.

Know of a bloke diving out behind the FFB on a mark he had, just happend that a pro had a pot there too. He didn't go in the pot but when he came up they came over, dragged him in their boat, beat the crap out of him then through him over the side, had to try & get back to his tinny with no fins etc.

Also heard of a rec catching  a pro pulling his pots out of Bunbury, guy took their details & told them he was going to report them. Spent the whole time getting back to the ramp trying to avaoid the pro skipper trying to ram him. Went to court pro got a slap on the wrist.

 i heard of 1 pot being pulled about 50 times in one day. was witnessed by someone looking out from their house on the coast. does make you wonder tho.

I saw a old bloke in Mindarie once and he pulled about 7 pots. Whilst the entire time being on his own..

The other thing that happens alot is the pro guys will grab the amature floats and tie them of to a cleat and drag them away from there gear. Often 100 of yards.

ANother time saw a pro throw about 9 sets of ropes and floats with all different numbers in the big bin in Mindarie..

back when the pros could fish for demersals they would burley up the snapper at a certain spot and catch up to a hundred odd a day! when the amatures learnt of this there would be a couple who would wait for the cray boats to come in and sit beside them whilst they would burley them up hoping to catch one or two! the pros didnt like this so would yell abuse threaten to ram them and if you still didnt move they would throw snapper frames at your boat!!

WHAT DO THEY THINK THEY OWN THE OCEAN????

Some folks have been pulling the pro occy pots,,will not be a pretty sight when they catch them,,

.

Out with Timbo retrieving a lost prop chopped pot, didn't have my mask and gear with me so we fashioned a hook on a rope to pull it up out of 15m or so. This dude came flying in on his tub as Tim was trying to hook the bugger claiming we were diving on his pots which were over 30m away. Explained the situation and that our pot was below the boat, no dive gear on board and that he was welcome to come over and check. He was still letting fly & anchored up watching for a good 30mins as we finally managed to snag the bugger & brought it up but fair play to him he came over apologised and offered us a hand  

Countless times our pots were moved or nicked & how often do you see a boat pull more than 4 pots and 2 guys are onboard, C---S 

my mates put their pots out down rockingham they never have any problems and dont kow anyone who does

Last season I had some guy abusing the wife and I for pulling his crab net while he was pulling ours up when I pointed out the the float he was holding and the one we where holding had our initials on it and unless by some coincidence he had the same initials and handwriting he may be wrong he just dropped the net mumbled and motored off , we lost 2 nets that day and had our bait changed on 2 others ! worlds full off 5 percenters  and why would anyone want to rob craypots there is no shortage of crays if there in the pots there under every ledge around it

are convinced if there are no crays in their pots either someone pulled them or divers stole them they

couldnt possibly be empty cos no crays went in in the first place