I’ve been dragging my feet about getting my recreational lobster license. I built the boat and have it well enough through its paces to know that it will do fine as a lobster boat. In fact, I think I can safely say it will be the only electric lobster boat in Maine, and probably on the east coast. I also want to do this as a source of amusement for my guests at SeaCat’s Rest, to give them the illusion that I am a real downeast Mainer and not a Michigan transplant, out there pulling up traps…with my electric boat.

There remain two big hurdles to bringing this plan into reality, the license and the equipment. There’s a third unknown, that of whether I will encounter hostility or sabotage from commercial lobstermen. This could derail the whole project and make the entire investment a loss. According to some reports I’ve read, the way to ingratiate oneself is to meet with the lobstermen,  offer pints of liquor and adopt the persona of a “good old boy” while humbling asking permission to drop your five traps. This to me is the most intimidating part of the process and I may skip it.

I have considered high tech alternatives to the usual buoys marking the traps. Without buoys there would be no sabotage. While on a long road trip I conceived of a system in which a buoy would be held underwater at the trap and released with a command from a remote. As usual when I come up with an invention like this someone has already done it, and this time was no exception. The company is located in Australia and is named Fiomarine. Unfortunately one of their rigs costs $9,000 in Australian dollars! Without a doubt, the booze would be cheaper (even single malt) . Still, the folks at Fiomarine are working on a more affordable version, and they promised to let me know when one is available. With all the reported “turf wars” taking place in the lobster grounds this could be a good solution. One buoy release could be linked to several, even a dozen traps on a line. No more cut lines, no prop entanglements or endangered marine mammals.

from Hamilton Marine

So getting the license the first time means taking an open book test and paying $65 plus spare change for trap tags. Not overly daunting. The equipment required is a bit more complicated to assemble. A small trap, manageable by someone without lifting equipment, is around $100. I hope to get a few for free or used, but they may need work or modification to bring them up to current laws, such as the biodegradable escape hatch. This allows lost or neglected traps to release lobster after a short while. 3/8″ sinking line and buoys, a gaff hook, bait bags, a double-sided gauge for measuring lobsters, a banding tool and probably a half dozen things I can’t anticipate all add up to an investment of maybe $800 for my 5 trap project. So if I figure on lobster at $4.00/lb (soft shell, midsummer) that means if I want to break even the first year I’ll have to haul 200 lbs of (keeper) lobster! At least I won’t be paying for gas or diesel.

Last year it looked like this

We all know that the shortest day of the year is the winter solstice, December 21. Here we get 8 hours and 50 minutes; not only on that specific day but for about a week as we hit the bottom of the sine wave. The solstice is just at the midpoint of the trough. Right now, on January 18 we have started the climb out of the bottom and have a whopping 9 hours and 17 minutes; and we’re adding two minutes per day. By the end of the first week in February we will be adding  3 minutes per day. We will continue adding 3 minutes until May as we start to reach the top of the hump. By the summer solstice we will have a maximum of 15 hours, 32 minutes.

But what does day length have to do with temperature? It stands to reason that the return of the sun means warmer temperatures, but it doesn’t quite work that way. There’s a time lag. Our warmest day of the summer is on average July 27, over a full month after the longest day. On this scorcher, our average high is 81°F. Remember this when it’s over 100°F where you are! (Now taking reservations!) As for winter, according to wunderground.com for Bar Harbor our coldest average day is…TODAY! January 18.  The chart shows an average low temperature of 6°F and an average high of 26°F. Like the bottom of day length, we start to add a degree or two every day from now on.

Jan 19, 2012. Just a little snow on top of Cadillac Mt.

This law of averages for temperatures is unlike the day length numbers though. Temperatures can be all over the place. This winter is shaping up to be mild (famous last words), with lots of ups and downs. I found budding elderberry shrubs in our woods. Today for example our high was 44°F and the low is projected to be 12°F. Not bad for the “coldest day”. Of course, I’m basing this conclusion on the data from one website, a bad practice. I can’t even find out how many years are used in the averaging.

Temperatures vary widely during winter throughout Maine. Here on the coast we get a lot of weather blowing up from the south and by the time it gets here it’s usually rain. The same day in the western mountains will be solid snow. Up in Caribou it can be 20 degrees colder. Our coldest temperature ever recorded in Maine was -50°F in Big Black River, on January 16, 2009. On that same day in Bar Harbor our low was a balmy -25°F! Makes today’s low of 12°F sound positively tropical! One thing I like to look at to get an idea about how cold things can get here is the ocean temperature. When the ocean freezes over, the temps plummet. Our ocean is currently at 43°F, quite warm.

Our cats are good thermometers. If it’s below 10°F they won’t go outside at all, and they are supposed to be Maine Coon Cats. If it’s between 10°F and 20°F they actually knock or yell at the door to come in. Sometimes they claw open the screen door and let it slam. Above 25°F and they become less panicky, finding warm places to hide while watching small animals, coming in only when it rains or they can’t find anything to torture and eat.

Photon has too much fur for 2012

Everybody knows the one about the  old Mainer sitting on the porch of the general store who, when asked by the tourist if he can take the road to Bar Harbor says, “I wouldn’t bothah, they got plenty theyah already”. Other variations: “How far to Bar Harbor?”, “About 24,000 miles the way you’re headed” or “You cahn’t get theyah from heah”. Mainers are known for their dry humor and clever witticisms. Being isolated helps to sharpen the tongue. We’re not at the end of the earth, but you can see it from here.

Photo by George French, courtesy Maine State Archives

The jokes tend to fall into four categories: the weather, tourists, “people from away” (who now live here) and quirky Mainers themselves. Tim Sample is the father of Maine humorists. In this video clip he explains the difference between a native Mainer and someone from away:

But if Tim Sample is the father, Marshall Dodge and Bob Ryan are the grandfathers. As Yale University students in the 1950s they put together an album of Maine humor and called themselves “Bert and I”. They practically invented the genre with their slow storytelling, dry humor and sound effects. Their albums sold over a million copies:

Bill Sawyer wrote a pamphlet in 1982  called, “A Collection of Maine Humor” which I was lucky enough to find at our Lamoine dump’s swap shop. In it he tells a story about an encounter with a tourist:

Some years back Ben Prichard, driving his old pickup truck, went clean through a stoplight and smacked real hard, broadside, into a big Cadillac with New York plates. He really whaled it. The fellow from New York was some upset, got out, walked over to Ben, yelled and hollered, and gave him a real hard time.

When the New Yorker had finally blown off most of his steam, Ben said, “Now young fella, there ain’t no sense in you carryin’ on like this. It ain’t so bad!” He then opened the glove compartment, drew out a pint of whiskey he always kept there, and said, “Now try a pull of this and calm down a bit.” The fellow from New York took a long draw of the whiskey and handed it back to Ben, who promptly put the cork back in the pint and started to put it back in the glove compartment.

“Aren’t you going to have some?” asked the New Yorker.

“Nope, ” says Ben, “I’ll wait till after the police come.”

Amelia made this for Christmas 2010

Get Ready Lobsters, ‘Cause Here I Come

(apologies to Smokey Robinson)

I never met a clam who makes me feel the way that you do. (You’re alright)

Whenever I’m asked what makes my meals real, I say crustaceans do. (They’re outta sight)

So, fee-fi-fo-fum
Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

And I’m bringing you some fish that smell.

So get ready, so get ready.

You’re gonna love it in my wire hotel.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.

(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come)

If you wanna play hide and seek with me, let me remind you (It’s alright) The meal is free if you’re too big or small, I just release you (It’s outta sight)

So, Fiddley-dee, Fiddley-dum Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

I’m bringing you a life with no risk.

So get ready, so get ready.

I’ll make your friends into a lobster bisque.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.

(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready)

[Instrumental]

If all my friends should want you too, I’ll understand it. (Be alright)

I hope to trap enough for them, the way I planned it. (Be outta sight)

So twiddley-dee, twiddley-dum Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

And if you’re a lady that’s just full of roe.

So get ready, so get ready.

I’ll notch your flipper and just let you go.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.
(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready)

Simply stated, “Why do Maine lobster landings keep going up?” The shaky economy and the high cost of fuel have failed to make lobster fishers into millionaires, but  lack of lobster is not an issue. In 1994 we thought the record-breaking 39 million pound harvest, exceeding the previous record by 26%, was a fluke. By 2009 the harvest soared to 78 million pounds, in 2010 93 million pounds, and some predict even higher numbers for 2011. What is going on?

A while back I summarized the prevailing theories about why landings continue to increase. Reduction of predators (the cod fishery collapse), increase of kelp beds due to sea urchin fishing (kelp beds protect young lobsters) and finally, the inspired way lobster harvesting is managed by our Maine laws and fishermen. This last reason is kind of self-serving; after all, you don’t create an historic population boom by eating less of something.

Meanwhile, the scientists were baffled. For many years they warned that the fishery was on the verge of collapse, calling it “overfished” (Stock Assessment Review Committee Document 93; 18 July, 1993) . It’s easy to see how they would think this. For about a century, data suggested that a healthy harvest level was somewhere in the 20 million pound range. But a publication written in 1996 and available at the Maine Government website here proposes an interesting theory. While mentioning the usual reasons, lower predation, increased minimum size as amended in 1988,  and warmer water temperatures, it also presents a unique calculation. In 1994 lobster fishers raised their traps 39 million times:

If we assume each newly set trap contains on average about 2 pounds of bait, we can then calculate that Maine fishers used about 78 million pounds of bait in 1994.

In 1994 the lobster harvest was 39 million pounds, so that’s two pounds of bait per pound of lobster. The lobsters know how to work a handout. They enter the traps (underwater videos show them doing this with little difficulty) and unless they are big enough to not fit through the escape vent, they will not stick around until the trap is hauled. If they are too big, a notched female or an unnotched egg bearing female, they will be returned to the water. The few whose carapace measure from 3-1/4″ to 5″ are retained.

from Maine lobsterguide.pdf

So if this theory is correct, what we have here in Maine is a semi-domesticated fishery! They come into shallow waters in the spring, eat “our” food, mate, shed and grow. Without the artificial food input would there be nearly 100 million pounds of lobster? Think of it this way: a quick and dirty google search (USA Today) brought up a ratio of 5 pounds of feed for one pound of chicken and two pounds per pound of catfish, so it’s not unreasonable to think that bait is a significant factor in the increase. More landings result in more traps. More traps mean more feeding stations, and so more lobsters. In Nova Scotia traps are limited by law, and the harvest has leveled off.

While it’s hubris to suggest that our fishing methods are so well designed that we are able to produce more lobster than we can harvest, it does appear that an unintended byproduct of this fishing method (the bait) could be doing just that. So keep eating lobster. There are hungry mandibles to feed.

Late Word: The Ellsworth American reported on Feb 1, 2012 that the 2011 lobster harvest was 100 million pounds! Wow! The same article also reported that the 2010 total just for our Hancock county was 31.1 million pounds. Compare this to 11.6 million pounds caught in Massachusetts  waters in 2009. For our part of Maine, that’s 576 pounds of lobster for every resident!