Lobster
Fishing
Lobster fishing is the commercial or recreational harvesting
of marine Lobsters or Spiny lobsters.
In southern California, lobster fishing for California
spiny lobster is lucrative due to a huge market demand
for lobster. Most commercial fishers use lobster traps.
Their use is considered advantageous to other collection
techniques.
Lobster
Traps are rectangular-shaped boxes made out of wire
mesh coated with tar. A trap must have in it a 2 3/8 x
11 1/2 inch-sized escape hole to allow under-sized lobsters
to escape the trap. Every trap must also have a 'self-destruction
device' to allow its door to fall open after it has been
out too long. Traps are sunk to the ocean bottom with
weights and are baited with dead fish or cat food. Attached
to every trap is a buoy labelled with the letter P followed
by the license number of the fisher who has set the trap.
Recreational lobster fishers in California must abide
by a legal catch limit of seven lobsters per day and a
minimal catch size of 3 1/4 inch long body measured from
the eye socket to the edge of the carapice. They can however
fish at any time of the year.
Commercial fishers, while not bound to abide by any particular
legal quota, must fish during lobster season, which starts
on the Saturday preceding the first Wednesday in October
through to the first Wednesday after the 15th of March.
All commercial fishers must also keep a log of the exact
number of legal and illegal lobster they catch.
Using lobster traps allows a fisher to harvest far more
lobsters in the same amount of time than does SCUBA diving
to catch lobster by hand. A fisher with one boat can set,
pull, and reset over 100 traps a day, making traping a
much more efficient means than diving. With the use of
that many traps, a fisher could collect anywhere from
100 to 1000 lobster. Using traps is moreover not held
back by what limits SCUBA - water depth, the time a diver
can remain underwater, and the water conditions during
diving.
Areas where lobster fishing is common include southern
California, New England, and the Canadian Maritimes.
See also
• Crustacean
• Lobster
• Spiny
Lobster
• How
to Boil Lobster
• How
to Eat Lobster
• Live
Maine Lobsters
Recipes:
• Baked
Stuffed Lobster
• Seafood
Stuffed Lobster
This article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Lobster Fishing".
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