Lobster fishing

In southern California, lobster fishing for California spiny lobster is lucrative due to a huge market demand for lobster. Most commercial fishers use lobster trapss. 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.

Commerical 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.