Danielson Pacific FTC Crab Trap-24in x 24in x 13in

Took this out of bodega bay on the opening day of the Dungeness crab season. We had 5 cages. Some with weighted doors, some without. Just the bare cage with a bait container in the middle worked flawless.1. set up the rope to pull from the center2. use bait containers with the smallest holes (bags worked best - like fishnet stocking size)3. the leaded rope works great4. get a float that doesn't look like everyone else's. The spent helium containers were the most entertaining on the water.5. flags on the floats helped.pretty amazing trap.

I was buying with the intent to use on blue crabs and was a bit shocked by the size. Very large, almost like a commercial pot for Maryland crabs. Its very sturdy, heavy wire. It will need modification for blue crab though. The grid is too large to hold small blues, but i think the keepers will be caught just fine. The escape holes will need to be wired smaller or even the keeperd may get out. I think it will work, but its not what i was expecting. Not legal for New Jersey. Does not have turtle exclusion device.

These traps are great if you put a lot of bait in the trap and wait for several hours to pull up. It takes time for crab to figure out where the swing doors are but once they're in they don't leave. I've tied up a couple of doors just to make it easy for crab to get in and when I pull the trap up I get most of the crab. Doing this means tying your crab line on the corner where the tied doors are so the crab fall down to the side of the trap where the doors are closed. ALSO you might need to tie the sides so the trap doesn't collapse because this trap is a bit shaky and a side can fall open. Use a piece of wire or bungee cord to make sure the sides stay in tack.

First day out from just the end of low tide to a good flow high tide. On a bridge with 6 other small pots (12x12x6). This thing got nothing, while the other smaller pots were pulling the crabs in. We had stinky chicken bait too..asked to use their bait (owners of 6 small pots). Still Nothing. Then decided to take off two of the four doors...strikeout for the day.What sealed the deal was when we swapped positions, he got a catch in less than 5 minutes. His hot spot..ZILCH for this big pot..ZILCH! Oh, BTW, you have to provide your own baiting method. Doesn't even come with a safety-pin type hook

This was returned because it isn't actually legal in California...without modification. Danielson recognizes this and has created a newer, updated version that allows one of the ends to fall open when its "rotten cotton" retention strap rots away. This is the old version and was replaced with the updated model.

The trap I got was blue in color but that was fine. I took the rubber bands off the trap doors. Wasn't sure if they were just there for shipping or not but it work without them. Snapped together easily and is of really good quality. The California cotton string was on the escape hatch. I would buy this again. Pictured with a start up kit "not included"

Holes are way too large for blue crabs. I had caught a large one that measured about 8” point to point. As I was lifting the trap out of water he fell right through the hole along the bottom. I read previous reviews saying the holes were too big but I took my chances. Everyone around me had the cheap baskets bragging they “only paid $3.97 at Walmart”. They were pulling crabs out left and right! I’m debating on covering it with chicken wire or returning the thing.Also one of the hooks along the top is too small to allow the trap to snap together. Had to use a zip tie to secure it.

Works great here in California for Dungeness crabs. Note you will need some rot cord to make it CA legal because the pots ship with all the proper escape rings but they are attached with 4 individual pieces of rot cord not the single piece Ca requires. Also if you are going to be dropping these off a boat I would recommend also buying some 1.5 lbs zinc pot weights to ensure these dont get drug around by the waves.