PORTLAND — Lobstermen are feuding again over territories in the rich lobster-fishing areas of Casco Bay, and in one dispute two fishermen were tossed in the harbor, a gun was brandished and a boat damaged.

“It’s a territorial dispute,” Marine Patrol Lt. Joseph Fessenden said Tuesday. “It’s a situation where there’s a limited area of space to fish.

“The lobstermen are competing for the same area and we’ve had a situation where they’ve been cutting each other’s traps,” he said. “There have been several lobstermen who’ve lost several thousand dollars worth of traps.”

The territorial feuding has flared amid a background of low lobster prices and discontent among Maine’s estimated 4,000 full-time lobstermen. Throughout the summer, lobstermen have staged protest strikes because they don’t think they’re being paid enough for their prized catch.

In Portland Harbor, the crews from about 12 lobster boats, pressured by the need to catch more lobsters to make up for the low prices, have been feuding over the areas where they set their traps, Fessenden said. They have been cutting each other’s traplines throughout the summer, he said.

“It’s a situation where the lobstermen are saying, `Am I getting my fair share of the poundage or is somebody being a pig and trying to take more than their fair share?’

“They call this area `the Bay of Pigs’ and this is one of the reasons,” he said.

Lobstermen have their own specially marked buoys attached to a line of lobster traps. Every day, they travel through their territory, stopping at each of their buoys to haul up their lines, empty the traps, put in new bait and dump them back in the water.

On Monday, a dispute between the captains of two boats, the B&B and the Rambler, turned violent in what Fessenden described as the worst confrontation he has seen in 15 years as a Maine Marine Patrol officer.

Fessenden said the B&B pulled alongside the Rambler as its captain, Matthew Chipman, 28, of Portland, was trying to pull up a string of traps that had been cut.

Norman Solak, 52, a longtime lobsterman from West Buxton, and one of his crew, Edward Mains Jr., 36, of Gorham, boarded the Rambler, Fessenden said.

The two crews struggled, he said, and Solak and Mains were thrown in the harbor.

Fessenden said the Rambler’s crew alleged later in a tape-recorded radio call to the Coast Guard that one of the B&B’s crew had brandished a gun at them after the on-board struggle.

“This is probably the most serious confrontation I’ve witnessed between two fishermen in my career,” Fessenden said.

After breaking up the confrontation, investigators from the Marine Patrol and the Coast Guard confiscated three weapons from the B&B, a .30-caliber rifle, a .22-caliber handgun and a .38-caliber handgun.

One of the boats also was damaged in the confrontation, said another Marine Patrol officer.

Fessenden said the Marine Patrol is investigating whether to file criminal charges against the crews involved.

“It’s highly illegal to molest another man’s gear,” said David Dow, executive director of the Lobster Institute, a cooperative research program at the University of Maine. “It’s an automatic, three-year license suspension for anybody caught doing it.

“But territoriality has been around for as long as anybody can remember,” Dow said. “It’s rare that you see a territorial dispute flare up in this overt fashion.”

Bob Brown, president of the Maine Import-Export Lobster Dealers Association, said the territorial feuding is a reflection of the tension lobstermen are feeling as they try to pay their bills with less income.

Soft-shell lobsters often have sold for as low as $1.75 to $1.85 a pound wholesale this summer, he said.

About 40 lobstermen from the Corea area tied up their boats and refused to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the latest protest over the low prices.

Brown said Maine harvested about 22 million pounds of lobster in 1988 and 24 million pounds in 1989. Lobster industry officials are predicting this year’s catch will hit about 26 million pounds.