Lobster catch picking up early on Maine coast Warmer ocean helps boost harvest

PORTLAND – In his 65 years of fishing, David MacVane has never caught large numbers of soft-shell lobsters before July. Until this year.

When soft-shell lobsters begin showing up, that means the bottom-crawling crustaceans are becoming active and Maine’s lobster harvest is picking up.

This year, Maine lobstermen are reporting healthy catches early in the summer. The early start is a welcome change from the past three years, when the harvest was weak in July and August before coming on strong in the fall.

MacVane, who began fishing from a skiff when he was 8 while growing up on Cliff Island in Casco Bay, said the early strong catch has been good because lobster dealers were hungry for supply for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

But it’s too early in the season, he said, to say if it’ll remain strong.

“I can’t complain – yet,” he said on a Portland wharf after a day of fishing aboard his boat, Empty Pockets. “I’ll tell you in a few weeks.”

The Maine lobster industry has experienced record volumes and values in recent years.

But in the past three summers, the lobster harvest started off sluggishly, triggering concerns that the lobster resource might be in trouble. In the end, lobstermen enjoyed late-season surges that pushed the year-end lobster catch up.

This year, many in the lobster industry predicted lobsters would show up in traps earlier in the season because of last winter’s mild weather and the relatively warm ocean water temperatures, said Portland lobster dealer Peter McAleney.

The early arrival of lobsters seems to be happening along most of the Maine coast, not just in select spots, he said.

“The whole state’s hitting,” said McAleney, who owns New Meadows Lobster. “We’re talking Matinicus, we’re talking Vinalhaven, we’re talking the whole coast.”

The early catch is nice, said Vinalhaven lobsterman Walter Day, but the price he’s getting for his lobsters is down. This week, Day is getting about $3.25 a pound for his catch, while last year the price never went below $4 a pound, he said.

“That’s not too good, and the price for herring has gone from $17 to $20 or $21 a bushel for bait, and fuel has gone up 30 cents a gallon from last year,” he said.

The early arrival of soft-shell lobsters – which occurs when lobsters shed their shells and grow into new ones – means that lobstermen are getting bigger and more consistent catches.

But it also means fewer hard-shell lobsters are available. Hard-shell lobsters, which have not yet shed their shells for the season, are preferred by many consumers because they have more meat in them.

Still, McAleney is pleased that the lobsters are running during tourist season instead of waiting until fall.

“By then, the tourists are gone and the kids are in school,” McAleney said. “Nobody’s thinking lobsters then.”