Lobstering Basics
Who can fish for lobsters?
A lobsterman can be a man or a woman…or a boy or a girl. You have to get a special fishing license just for lobsters. Some people catch lobsters for fun, but many men and women catch and sell lobsters as their job. You need to learn how from another person that catches lobsters and you have to have that special license.
Where do you catch lobsters?
While the American lobster can be found as far south as Virginia and the Carolina’s, the most viable commercial fishery really start in the Massachusetts/Rhode Island areas– and ranges all the way up to Newfoundland, Canada.
How do you catch a lobster?
The majority of fishing for lobsters is still done in much the same way as when the fishery first started…with a bit of modern technology to make things easier. About 80-90% of landings are from the inshore fishery, and lobsters are fished with baited traps or pots. The number of traps a lobsterman is allowed to fish at any one time may vary depending on the regulations where he/she is fishing. However, the technique is basically the same. A lobsterman will put a bag full of bait (usually herring or other fish) in each trap dropped from the boat, or “set”. It is attached by a rope (trap line) to a floating buoy to mark its location. Buoys are painted with particular colors that are registered by each lobsterman, which helps identify to whom each trap belongs.
Each trap is allowed to “soak”, or stay in the water for usually two or three days. Then the lobster boat returns to haul up each trap. The lobsterman will pull the boat up beside the trap and snag the buoy with a gaffe, a special hook designed for that purpose. The trap line will then be brought onto the boat and connected to a hydraulic trap hauler, an automated pulley-like system that reels the trap up from the bottom to the side of the boat.
Once on the boat, the lobsterman and/or the sternman will remove the lobsters from the trap. Those of legal size will be kept and those that are too small or too big, and those that are v-notched, will be returned to the water. A new bait bag is put in the trap and it is the re-set for the next haul
Who can fish for lobsters?
A lobsterman can be a man or a woman…or a boy or a girl. You have to get a special fishing license just for lobsters. Some people catch lobsters for fun, but many men and women catch and sell lobsters as their job. You need to learn how from another person that catches lobsters and you have to have that special license.
How do you catch a lobster?
Lobsters are caught in lobster traps (also called lobster pots). A lobsterman will put a bag full of bait (usually herring or other fish) in each trap. He or she will then go out in the ocean in their lobsterboat and drop their traps into the water, and hope that the lobster will go into the trap because they want to eat the bait. Once a lobster is in the trap it is hard for it to get out. After a day or two, the lobsterman will pull up the traps they dropped into the water and hope to see lobsters inside.
Why can’t you keep all the lobsters you catch?
Sometimes lobsters have to be put back in the ocean. Most of the time, lobstermen will put mother lobsters back into the ocean with a special notch in the shape of a “V” cut into a tail fin. Also the smaller, younger lobsters (in Maine, those less that 3 1/4″ carapace length) are put back. Sometimes they put the very big lobster back too (in Maine over 5″ carapace length”. They do this to be sure there will always be enough lobsters in the ocean and enough for fishermen to catch and people to eat. This is called conservation.
