This style of crab pots is heavy duty and durable.  These, in my opinion, are the best all-around pot to use, however they are expensive.

Advantages:

Traditional pots fish well for extended periods of time soaking unattended.

Crabs are well trapped and can’t get out easily.  The crab entrance on this style of crab pot is centred on the sides of the pot, with a ramped wire rectangular tunnel leading to the door.  When the crab follows the short tunnel and enters the door he then drops off of the tunnel down to the floor of the trap.  Since the door of the trap is raised up off of the bottom, it keeps the new crabs from easily blocking the door open and allowing the existing crabs to escape.

This style is the heaviest because of the steel structure, but their weight varies depending on the amount of steel used. Most come with added steel re-bar weights so they don’t drift away during heavy tidal or current flows.  Get the heaviest pots you can handle, you don’t want them moving around once you drop them.

Durability.  If you buy quality pots and take care of them, they are going to last you a long time.

If they get partially buried in the sand they won’t easily deform or break when you use the boat or heavy engine has driven pot puller to pull them loose of the sand.

This style is large and holds the most crab of any option available.

If you get the really big ones (we’re talking commercial size) and someone tries to pull your pot to steal your crab… they are only going to try (maybe unsuccessfully) once because these babies are heavy and they are really heavy when they have 50 keepers plus all of the throwbacks in them!  Thieves don’t want to work hard.

Disadvantages:

These pots are the most expensive option.  Quality doesn’t come cheap and spending $80 to $130 per pot is typical depending on the size and construction.

Traditional crab pots have raised doors, so it requires the crab to do a little bit of climbing and searching to find the entrance, so these traps don’t fill as fast as the cage variety or rings.

Heavy and take up a large amount of space in the boat and wherever they are being stored.

Hard to lift into the boat because they are heavy, to begin with, and they are much heavier when filled with crab.