Lobster fishing

Lobster fishing is the commercial or recreational exploitation of marine Lobsters or Spiny lobsters.

In southern California, lobster fishing for California spiny lobster is a huge business because there is such a high demand for lobster. Most commercial fishermen use lobster traps because they have many advantages over other collection techniques. Lobster traps are rectangular shaped boxes made out of wire mesh coated with tar. All traps must have a 2-3/8 x 11-1/2 inch escape hole so the illegal sized lobsters can get out. Every trap must also have a destruction device which allows the door to fall open after the trap has been out too long. The traps are sunk to the bottom with weights where they are baited with dead fish or cat food. Coming up from every trap is a buoy that has the letter P followed by the license number of the fisherman who set it.

Unlike recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen are not limited by the seven lobster per day limit. They do have to follow the rule that each lobster must be 3-1/4 inches from the eye socket to the edge of the carapice. They also may only fish during the lobster season which starts on the Saturday preceding the first Wednesday in October through the first Wednesday after the 15th of March. All commercial fishermen must also keep a log of the exact number of legal and illegal lobster they catch.

The lobster traps have some advantages and some disadvantages over SCUBA diving and picking the lobster by hand. One advantage of using traps is that a fisherman with one boat can set, pull, and reset over 100 traps in one day, making it much more efficient that doing a few dives looking for lobster. With that many traps out, a fisherman could collect anywhere from 100 lobster to 1000 lobster. Lastly, the traps are not held back by the constraints of SCUBA such as depth, underwater time, or water conditions.

There are quite a few areas in the world in which lobster fishing is common : some include southern california, the Canadian Maritimes.