How do these Oyster Traps work ?

Call Wolfie he's into that weird stuff

How would you trap an oyster? They don’t move much. More of an aquaculture item, I would think.

I don't think it's a trap, I think it's more of an incubator, put little ones in it and harvest when they get big.

This^

Structure for the spat to attach to and grow. Commercial aquaculture is the future for oysters as wild reefs have been hit hard. The best oysters in the east came from Apalachicola bay supplied 90% of all oysters consumed in Florida and much of the southeast. The bay was closed to harvest back in 2020 and won't reopen until the end of this year and may not even then. When it does harvest will be limited to hand tongs only.
Alabama has instituted pretty tight harvest limits and zones of harvest. Commercial aquaculture is allowed though as long as a certain amount of the spat is allowed to go back to the wild to help restock natural reefs.

Yes, Wolfie has an interesting mind.

Appears to be a floating keeper of some type, maybe oysters, maybe crabs or bait fish, hard to tell from that photo.

If it’s what I think it is (pic is bad) they are used for holding seed oysters (spat) and that is where they grow before being harvested…usually used in oyster farming….oysters harvested from “farms” are not considered wild caught…in our area this has hurt the watermen that still harvest wild oysters due to regulation, season, and catch limits.

Up here, the farms buy spat from the hatcheries and plant them in floating grow bags/cages...the oysters are hybrids so they put all their energy into growth, no spawning...I doubt that contraption is a spat collector, you would only get regular oyster spat which grows slower and poor quality in the summer, the hybrids are good year round.

I don't know much about oysters but this appears to be a decent way to grow them