Maine lobster makes a major contribution to the state's
economy. In 2003, an excellent year, the catch approached 55 million pounds,
worth more than $200 million. The fishery provides a livelihood for nearly 7,500
lobstermen and women as well as boat makers, marine outfitters, processors and
retailers, including hundreds of restaurants. The oldest commercial license holder
was 92 in 2003; the youngest student license holder was not quite six.
Lobstering in Maine is largely an inshore fishery, conducted
within 10 miles of the coastline. Lobsters don’t like light, so they hide in burrows on the ocean’s rocky bottom during the day, coming out to forage at night. They dine on clams, mussels, sea urchins and crabs, among other ocean denizens. Nicknamed “gangster of the sea” for
their aggressive behavior, they approach other lobsters only to mate.
Winter’s cold weather makes
lobsters sluggish; they hardly move about or feed at all,
so most lobster folks spend the winter months working on their
boats and traps. The typical harvester will drop his or her first traps in late spring
and fish through late fall. Harvesters catch their prey with
baited traps, also known as lobster pots. A single boat might
set several hundred traps a day, dropping them anywhere from
10 to 250 feet deep. They are strung together on a line, with
perhaps 15 to 20 traps per line, and hauled up hydraulically.
Colored and patterned buoys indicate where the traps are and
distinguish one harvester’s from another’s.
Harvesters regularly tinker with
their trap designs, but most pots have a similar architecture.
The typical trap has two compartments: a kitchen and a parlor.
The lobster enters through the front door, a piece of funnel-shaped
netting with a hole at the base. A similar passageway separates
the rooms. The bait is in the kitchen, but the lobster has
to pass through the parlor to get to it. Once in the kitchen,
the lobster can’t retreat.
