Lobster traps

Question for DEP,

I have had personal Lobster license on and off the last twenty years. Nothing like it use to be. Anyway, I now there is only a handful of commerical lobsterman in western sound left. Its seems that one of them ? may be cutting my lines to my traps when I am unsuspectingly too close to thier own pots. What can I do? I am planning on setting the traps again. I am resetting the traps after my kid begged me because they have so much fun with all the bycatch!!

Any advice would be appreciated. No one owns the sound!!!!!

I know a guy who encounterd this in the Western Sound. He had an interesting approach that worked very very well.

He waited until the saw the commercial guy pulling his own pots. He went up to him and said........................"you can keep cutting my lobster pot lines if you want, but remember, YOU have a lot more to lose than me, so it's your choice"...........

It ended rather quickly.

My buddy lost 20 pots in a few months, saw the lobsterman do it and went to his dock. All he did was tell him he knew he cut the lines and then informed him of the approximate size a 12ga slug would put through fiberglass.

I lost half a dozen pots off Stonington this year. One week I was in an area all by myself, next week my buoys are gone, and there are 50 orange and white buoys in the area. I was gonna spread them out the week before and decided to leave them one more week. My bad I guess. I'm not looking to deprive anybody an opportunity to make a living, but c'mon... Besides, It's not like I'm gong to stop fishing.

See jonh he will beat them up for you, he's dead set against guns on the water.

Call our dispatch center and ask for the officer who covers your area to contact you. Explain to the officer what is happening, that way they can keep an eye on who is doing what out there and take the appropriate enforcement action.

ENCON, Will do, Thank you.

Orange and white buoys in stonington are Mike Grimshaws,...he's a fuhkn DIRTBAG THIEF...................end of story,......cut him....cut all of em..... Actually it does no good to cut with just lost gear everywhere, I watched this go on between my old boss and a few boys from Fishers 15 years ago over turf and it was just stupid.......I can almost guarantee that your pots are sitting on town dock somewhere as he has helped himself to many's over the years and has been bagged doing it,..he has no class, no trustworthyness,no couth, no skill he just carpet bombs the sound.The man is a skeevy scumbag
His boats are the Lady Lynn and Trisha K unless he changed the names,..his wife divorced him a few years ago but they are Stonington borough town dock.......

Can anyone provide me with detailed information about the state's program to find and collect derelict gear? I understand it's a short period of time with minimal gear collected, and I'm working with a group that is making a push to establish a more comprehensive program. Thanks.

Colleen Giannini 860-447-4308