On Oct 29, 10:45 pm, Rosalie B. wrote:
"Bill Kearney" wkearney-99@hot-mail-com wrote:
Fish traps, they hang nets between the poles, very nasty if you get
caught in one. Unfortunately they are all over the Chesapeake, mostly
in the shallows and off the beaten track.

All over? Not quite. I've only seen about 6 of them total, at least out in
the Bay itself. They are usually in waters less than 10 feet, a hundred
yards or more offshore. And they have a tendency to not show up reliably on
radar...

They are around the entrances to rivers sometimes. There's quite a
lot of them around the Great Wicomico (Virginia) for instance, and at
the entrance to the York River some around the entrance to Smith Creek
off the Potomac and some around Salt Ponds IIRC..

But they don't show up on the radar very well. If they aren't marked
on the charts, I mark my own charts with their locations.

The reason that I wouldn't travel around much in the Bay after dark
though is crab pots more than pound nets.

I sail out of the Wicomico River at the north end of Tangier Sound.
When exiting the sound through Hoopers Straights, in addition to the
thousands of crab pots, there are at least a dozen pound nets off of
Hoopers Island. This is on the way to Solomans Is. from the straights.
I was sailing south, at night some years ago and ran right into one of
these unlighted nets on a reach in 20 knt. winds..like hitting a giant
sling shot...no damage to the boat, maybe my underware, but I think I
pulled a couple of the poles out of the bottom.