YARMOUTH, Nova Scotia – Fishermen from the Shubenacadie tribe will take to the waters off southwestern Nova Scotia next week when the six-month commercial lobster season opens – without a fishing deal with Ottawa.

The tribe plans to fish as many as 3,500 traps, or a nine-license equivalent, in District 34, which runs from Baccaro, Shelburne County, to a point near Digby, said Chief Reg Maloney. It also plans to fish up to 1,500 traps, or the equivalent of four licenses, in District 33, between Halifax and Baccaro.

The commercial lobster season opens Nov. 27.

The tribe, whose members live on the Indian Brook reserve, has not signed a fishing agreement with Ottawa and simply delivered its fishing plan Nov. 9 to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“We’re still reviewing it,” DFO spokeswoman Wendy Williams said Monday. “We haven’t responded yet officially.”

She was able to confirm that six lobster licenses have been offered to Indian Brook to be fished this fall. Five are in District 33 and one is in District 34.

“To date, they haven’t been accepted,” Williams said. The licenses are being offered without the need to sign a formal agreement, she said.

An alliance of nontribal fishermen has urged federal Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal to inform the tribe that unauthorized lobster fishing will not be tolerated.

Last year, more than 5,000 people in 1,700 boats set gear in 13,000 square miles of ocean in eastern Canada’s most lucrative fishery.

Denny Morrow, coordinator for the Atlantic Fishing Industry Alliance, said onday that the Marshall decision clearly stated that Micmacs are to exercise their treaty right to fish in their traditional fishing grounds.

“Indian Brook has provided no evidence that the lobster grounds in southwestern Nova Scotia were ever a part of the band’s traditional fishing area,” he said.

Chief Maloney maintains that all of Nova Scotia is the traditional hunting and fishing ground of his people.

“They have to recognize that we have a treaty right that allows us to do this without a license. We must be on the water unmolested,” he said.

Last spring, DFO offered four licenses to Indian Brook to be fished in District 32, east of Halifax, along a portion of the Eastern Shore. That offer was refused and the lobster season there is now closed.

This fall, the tribe decided on how many traps to fish “in consultation with our fishermen,” Maloney said.

“But I think myself, I think it’s quite high,” he said, adding the number may actually be lower.

Last summer, federal fisheries officers seized a total of 1,758 lobster traps from St. Marys Bay that did not carry DFO identification tags and confiscated eight boats, including one donated by the government. Indian Brook’s self-regulated summer lobster season ran there from July 3 until Oct. 15.

It will be up to individual tribe members to obtain a boat and gear if they want to participate in the upcoming season.

“The band gets 10 percent of each boat’s take, money or product,” Maloney said.

The rest of the catch belongs to the boat’s owner.

The tribe is hoping to be able to sell catches locally, perhaps to the same buyer who purchased product from their summer fishery in St. Marys Bay, Maloney said.

This fall, the band plans to fish from ports in Shelburne and Yarmouth counties, Maloney said, although he was not sure which ports would be used.