On todays dive we saw this crab pot sitting on a shelf. Already deep. It was a windy day, and as we approached the pot we could see it moving. The buoy on the surface was pulling it closer to the edge.
When the pot falls down to the next shelf, the buoy will perhaps stay on the surface. Maybe. When it falls all the way down to the sandy bottom, the buoy will definitely be pulled down under water.
When, because it’s only a matter of time before it happens. Hopefully, the fisherman recovers it before it happens. Unfortunately, windy days often makes it uncomfortable, difficult or even dangerous for the fisherman to go out to sea. On the next calm day the buoy is gone.
Then the fisherman have lost the pot. The catch will slowly die, and become new bate for other animals to enter the pot. The circle goes on and on. The pot has become a ghost fishing pot.
It will continue its deadly circle until the net rots, or someone takes it out of the ocean.
Know your fishing spots. Be careful. Report lost pots in Ghostguard.