Hopefully, many of those poles are marking bottom nets and set lines so we'd only be in trouble if we run right next to a pole. I don't know how many have lines running between poles right at the top.
Usually the bad ones are any in real shallow water such as
fyke nets which run from shore usually or in shallower water, and have a solid line (the lead net) running on top of the water all the way out to the last pole. There can be trap nets on floats also, but you should see them in shallow water and a whole bunch of floats very close together like the fyke net.
I haven't seen any of those outside of Saginaw Bay or the one I saw just South of Cedar Point a few years ago. A bunch of floats close together is a bad sign. More widely spaced probably means a bottom net.
Regardless, I do my best to not run between poles. Of course, many aren't marked very well. I've seen many shallow set lines in Saginaw Bay over the years that were very poorly marked or not at all. They use trap nets in the shallows too that you wouldn't want to run over. I have to believe any trap nets they use in Erie are deeper than we run (I hope) like
this one. Gill nets should normally be on or near the bottom also, but there are no guarantees.
Check out these
pictures too. Not sure exactly what type of net I saw coming out from shore south of Cedar Point that time, but it was hundreds of yards long with dozens of floats and flags every couple of feet.