3 years ago this month tried deep holing first time and had great success one time: a limit in an hour. Subsequent to that, have tried it several times with very limited success. 10/26/13 in BB tried again. Started catching in one of the creeks near the Bay 2 hours after tide began receding. Previously thought they would only be in the holes at low tide, and then would fan out into the grass as tide rose. Shrimp were med-large; catching up to 3 doz a throw. Things slacked off after and hour so went to another creek: SHRIMP on. Bigger and more. Caught them all day in 25-31 feet deep. Caught almost whole limit at second location. Mid to late afternoon went to third location to top off cooler. Tide had now peaked and was starting to fall, but still very full. Now started catching 40-60+ per throw and size was as big as I’ve caught in 13 years. Limited easily.
So the piece to the puzzle: two things maybe. One is late season and cooler water, 61 degrees. Second is that the Bay was clear water all day. Can’t catch shrimp on flats in clear water, so they must be somewhere…holes. There are many such holes around Bulls Bay/Cape Romain…plenty to go around. Saturday was a beautiful day. Fun to catch when they’re like that. Driver less stressed. Throws don’t have to be perfect with taped net.
Swansea the same duct tape has been on there three years. You put a layer on inside butting up to the outside layer. It’s nice to have a helper. Strangely, the net does not seem to tangle as much as my untaped nets. You will see that you have to watch for shrimp hiding in the folds of the tape.
Just telling you what I’ve read now: It opens the net full out, and will even fix a taco. The resistance from the tape acts like a parachute to resist the faster sinking leads from closing the net on the way to the bottom in deep water. It does make the net sink slower as you can tell from the slow payout of line. You want to be sure there’s no tension on your rope and that it is more than long enough to make it to the bottom. I’ve added an extension on my net line so it’s about 45 feet long. Once I think net is on bottom, we back up to tighten the line and try to drag a little horizontally on bottom to begin net closure, just like some have explained they do on bait casting, as opposed to lifting the net straight up. We have thrown two nets off the front of boat simultaneously, one taped and the other regular, and the taped net always catches lots more shrimp, so I am pretty sure what I’ve described works, whether it’s the actual way it’s working or not:smiley:
