Fishermen pull up discarded crab pots in effort to clean up NC coast

Today, he’s not looking for his typical catch. That's because he’s searching for lost crab pots.

“By daybreak, maybe a little before, we get the boat ready," Bruno said. "We’ll put the boat in the water and immediately start searching.”

This year is Bruno’s seventh year being a part of the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s (NCCF) lost fishing gear recovery program.

“This means a lot to us," said Rachel Bisesi with the NCCF. "At the coastal federation one of our tag lines is working together for a healthy coast and one way we can help keep our waters clean and healthy is by partnering with a lot of groups and people.”

Bruno is one of 24 crews involved in the clean-up effort.

“We cruise mostly the shorelines in two, three feet of water and look," Bruno said. "You can see either a piece of a buoy or a whole buoy or sometimes the water is so clear as we’re going by you can just see the pot on the bottom.”

Once a crab pot is found, crews use a tablet provided by the coastal federation to record information about where it was found, its condition, and if any crabs or fish found were inside.

“We bring all of the pots back here to the yard," Bruno said. "Every pot is tagged with the owner’s name so we can give them a call and say hey two or three of your pots are here you can come to the yard and get them if they want.”

The effort by the coastal federation began in 2014.

“North Carolina Marine Patrol was in charge of removing the pots, then came up with this idea to have the commercial fishers help with the removal because the commercial fishers know the waters," Bisesi said. "They’re out there all the time, they know where the pots are going to be and since they involved them in this process so many more pots have been found.”

Both fisherman and the coastal federation say the program is a win-win for the health of the coast and the economy.

The fishermen involved in the lost fishing gear recovery program have until Jan. 31 to find as many lost crab pots as possible. So far more than 800 have been picked up since Jan. 8. The project was funded by the general assembly this year.