Neptune Marine Products was created in 1987 by the father and son team of Bob and Ed Wyman in the Ballard area of Seattle. Building on an earlier crab trigger device they invented, the Wymans invented a one way entrance device called the Cod Trigger. It was used to modify king and tanner crab pots into pots that would catch cod for baiting their crab pots. It quickly became evident that cod pot fishing was not only a good way to catch bait, but that it could be a viable directed fishery. This started happening in 1989. About the same time, Golden king crab fishermen fishing in the Aleutian Islands discovered that using these Cod Triggers on their crab pots increased their catches dramatically. The entire fleet still uses these Neptune Crab Triggers in their deep water fishery.
Over the next 20+ years, Neptune Marine’s Cod Trigger invention has morphed into a range of triggers that are used on a variety of species around the world. They continue to explore new applications for their Triggers in new, and existing, fisheries. One exciting development is the use of their Triggers in the commercial Dungeness crab fishery where good feedback has garnered interest from fishermen looking to experiment and find a better fishing pot.
