What lobster fishermen do in the winter months

Trawl Balloons in Winter.  Photo courtesy of Billy Kitchen.

A lobster trap at rest in winter.

A pile of lobster traps await another season.

Things quiet down for lobster fishing in the winter season. Most fishermen take most, if not all, of their traps ashore as the weather is too bad and the lobsters too few to make fishing worth the effort. During this time, they repair and prep their traps for the next fishing season. The process includes addressing any wear and tear to the traps or line and getting the traps "up to code" with Maine's various regulations to ensure lobster conservation.

With regards to conservation, each lobster fisherman in Maine is allowed to fish up to 800 traps per season.  The fisherman must mark each of his or her traps with a personalized trap tag for that season.  In the above close up picture of the trap, you can see an orange rectangular tag in the center of the trap.  This is the trap tag.  

Another conservation measure with regards to lobster traps is escape vents.  Each trap must be equip with special vents which allow juvenile (small) lobsters to escape from the trap as quickly as possible.  Though lobster fishermen will always set free any small lobsters they pull up in their traps (fishermen are not legally allowed to keep lobsters under a certain size)  they'd rather small lobsters escape the trap even more quickly, because the longer a small lobster stays in a trap, the lower its chance of survival.  Lobsters are cannibals by nature and if small lobster is put in the presence of a large, aggressive lobster (typically a pregnant female) it often leads to a tragic end for the small lobster.  The escape vents are sized to let small lobsters pass through while keeping in the large lobsters.  

The escape vents serve another conservation measure as well.  Each vent must be fixed to the trap with iron hog rings.  These hog rings are designed to rust away after nine months.  When they rust away, the vent falls away from the trap, leaving an even larger hole, which allows all sizes of lobsters and other sea life to go free.  This measure is designed to ensure that, should a trap get stuck on the bottom of the ocean for an extended period of time, lobsters and sea life won't be needlessly and permanently stuck there.  Each winter, the fishermen replace the hog rings in these vents so they can last another season.  In the lower left hand side of the close up trap picture, you can see the orange escape vent.  There is also a black escape vent on the top door of the trap.  The more escape vents, the better.

The other picture in this post is of my father's trap pile. There are about a thousand lobster traps in that pile - which represents the 800 he can fish and about 200 spare traps which will be used for replacing lost gear throughout the next season.

To read the latest updates on the Maine lobster fishing season, click here.