Dear Trotline Customers,

Over the past 15 years we have been selling rolls of our bait bag material to make bait bags for your fishery.  Quite frankly, being from the NW and dealing mostly with Alaska based fisheries, I didn’t know about your fishery.  Fishermen from Rock Hall changed that.  In 2004 they started ordering our bait bag material.  Always the curious one, Capt. Neptune asked questions about your fishery.  I learned a lot.  Over the next couple of years, trotliners learned about our bait bag product and have been buying it ever since. I thank you for your business.

Over the past 3 years we have not raised our prices.  Our supplier, Norplex, has not raised our prices and neither has Neptune Marine.  The prices will remain the same this year for our material.  The increase has come from UPS freight.  Every year they jack up their prices.  Not only their basic freight price but also adding on the following : a fuel surcharge, a residential surcharge, and in most cases an extended service area charge which impacts most of our customers.  The cost per roll has gone from around $55 – $60 range to around $ 74 – $76 per roll.  Not a good situation.

There is a solution that might save you some money and Capt. Neptune some work.  Out of our 200 + customers, we probably have 10 customers that will order 10 – 20 rolls at a time.  They work with their fellow fishermen to put together an order and Capt. Neptune arranges a pallet shipment directly from the Norplex plant. This not only saves the freight cost from Norplex to Neptune Marine, it also eliminates the box charge and shipping charges from UPS.  A win/win situation for you as well as Capt. Neptune.  We use commercial trucking lines to move the pallets across the country.

The rolls of netting are stacked on the pallets in 5 roll layers.  This makes shipments of 20, 15, 10, and 5 rolls the common sized orders.  The freight discount is higher for the 20 roll pallet than the lower quantity orders down to around 10 rolls per pallet.  A 5 roll pallet offers some discount but not a lot.

Capt. Neptune is also offering a lower cost per foot for these bulk orders.  See attached sheet for the breakdown.  Keep in mind, we have no control over the pallet freight costs.  Each destination will have its own cost depending on how far the truck has to travel. Our cost per foot will remain the same unless we get a price increase from Norplex, which we have not had in 4 years.

Sincerely,

Captain Neptune

Over the past 4 months, a commercial Dungeness crab fisherman on the outer coast of Vancouver Island has been testing various Neptune Dungeness triggers in his existing round pots.  He tested 3 various models to see which would work the best.  His existing pots had rigid tunnels and he was cautious about cutting them out to mount the Neptune triggers.  Initially he rigged 5 pots, then 10, followed by 20 pots.  Over this time he gradually picked out one trigger  that stood out from the rest.  The MFL 105 trigger made with a finger tip gap of around 1″ proved to be the best design.  He mentioned to Capt. Neptune that it became evident that the Neptune modified pots were out fishing his remaining conventional pots by 20% at a minimum.  He has since modified all his pots with the MFL 105 triggers and is quite happy with the results.

Another tidbit of information passed on to the Capt. by this fishermen is worth passing along as well.  The fellow mentioned that in the winter they are only allowed to fish a diminished number of pots (67 pots) and can only haul their pots once a week.  The fisherman’s son was crewing for him and one of his jobs was to bait the pot.  On their weekly haul of the gear, one pot with Neptune triggers comes up with no bait container.  His son forgot to bait the pot. The result……8 crab in an unbaited pot!  The fisherman asked Capt. Neptune if he thought it might have had something to do with the orange color of the Neptune triggers?  The Captain’s response was that it very well could have been.  Why would this be the case?  When we mold our finger units with orange polypropylene, we add a fluorescent pigment to the mix.  This is thought to create a residual ‘glow’ that might be able to be picked up by crab and other shellfish’s eyes even though it just might just appear bright to human eyes.

One of the other things that became evident in this winter fishery in BC was the holding capability of Neptune rigged pots.  Dungeness crab are known to be escape minded once the bait is gone after a couple of days.  The traditional SS triggers have problems at times ‘leaking’ crab on longer soaks.  Evidently, there was very little leaking in the Neptune pots when they could only be hauled once per week.

In the deep water Golden king crab fishery in the Aleutian Islands, the only color of trigger used is our orange triggers.  The same goes for the Chaceon Golden crab fishery in Florida. The Capt. has also heard from spiny lobster fishermen in New Zealand concerning the orange colored fingers.  Some fishermen would fish black and orange fingers in separate pots to check out results.  The results came back with the orange triggered pots out-fishing the pots with black triggers.  Same thinking as crab fishermen in the US and Canada…there’s something fishy about Neptune’s orange fingers!

Breaking News from South Puget Sound

A commercial Dungeness crabber fishing South Puget Sound has been the first to fish a new 3 entry pot featuring Neptune Triggers.  Using Neptune MFL 105 triggers and Spectra webbing, Dungeness Gear Works (DGW) in Everett, WA, made the pot shown below.  The third trigger is covered with crab but it’s there!

We are working to create a square Dungeness crab pot that would have Neptune triggers on 3 sides of the pot.  The pot’s bridle would be opposite the flat side of the trap.  This would keep the triggers from getting impacted by the crab when the pot is hauled.  Stay tuned !