The one that’s been adopted as the norm since their manufacture moved onto industrial estates looks unnecessarily deep and expensive to me.
It is so deep, it needs a door to empty and bait it, rather than just reaching in through a pocket.
If you knit your own entrances, you can vary their accessibility.
I tend to make one of the entrances larger and shallower; both to allow big crabs, and my hand in. You then rope the pot to present that side to you as you pull it into the boat.
Having netted the frame, cutting holes in it for the blind-eyes is traumatic. I thread polyprop round the hole to define it, then run a line of twine round half-hitched to it that sets the number of meshes the entrance will have.(Start on a bottom corner.)
I see no point in the entrance having smaller meshes than the rest of the pot, so copy that. When you’ve completed your circle of half-hitches, it’s time for your net-knot.
Remember to leave enough sag in the twine to allow for what gets lost in the knot.
Also, try to make the meshes slightly bigger on the sides of the hole.
Carry on netting round a few times.
I make quite shallow entrances: only two full meshes deep, and they work.
Stop the netting as you come round off the top. Pull the twine tight up to the end of the side-bar opposite (the middle if you’ve made the pot left-handed) and tie it tight back onto the pocket.
Thread the twine through the bottom meshes until you feel you have sufficient span to the entrance, then tie it off & take it round the side-bar opposite and tie it off.
You should have a good tight, sloping bottom of the blind-eye for your trouble.
Now weave the twine through the top meshes, and tie off, trying to leave the top flap loose enough to let in the catch, but basically meeting the bottom entrance when it’s shut.
It’s an art. The beauty of it is every one is slightly different.
I use bait-strings rather than net tubes etc. Make sure they are in the centre of the pot, and cut old inner-tube to elasticate them.
You have a pot.
You need either to put a splodge of cement in it, or devise a bag of old net to build in or some-such to fill with stones when you set it.
Setting the pot gets us back out in the sea, so let’s do that in another blog.
It'll be good to get out after three days in this virtual, cold , smelly shed...