The Lobster Monsters: A predator turns prey in the wee hours off the California coast
California spiny lobsters await weigh-in at Dive N’ Surf’s Lobster Mobster contest Oct. 2. Photo by Carolyn Kraft
A predator turns prey in the wee hours off the California coast
With two long antennae leading the way, beady-eyed creatures crawl out of shared dens and crevices along the ocean floor in search of prey. Their antennae constantly shift to sense the surroundings, with 10 legs at the ready to chase down their victims. Their strong jaws crush the shells of other animals, leaving broken bits in their wake.
These alien-looking animals, colored to match the surface of Mars, are California spiny lobsters. But little does this crustacean army know that they are about to become the prey.
On the night of October 1, individuals across the South Bay shed their work clothes and slip on wet suits to prepare for diving into the deep. The people performing this ritual shrouded in darkness represent a dedicated and diverse group, including a psychologist, a welder, a longshoreman, a property manager and an engineer, just to name a few. Before midnight they fan out to secret dive spots and prepare to leap into the inky ocean when the clock strikes twelve united in purpose: to catch the biggest California spiny lobster.
The recreational, California spiny lobster season runs from the Saturday preceding the first Wednesday in October through the first Wednesday after the 15th of March. Dive N’ Surf celebrates the start of the season with its Lobster Mobster contest. The tradition was started 34 years ago by Dive N’ Surf and Body Glove CEO Robbie Meistrell.
“There’s an opening season of lobster every year and it was a way to get people into diving and into night diving,” said Meistrell. “One of the hardest things running a dive store is getting people into the store to actually learn how to dive, so when you do get somebody into diving you want to keep them diving.”
Divers bring in their opening night catches to the dive shop for weighing and to have their photograph taken. The divers with the three largest lobsters win dive gear and bragging rights.
In past years, Dive N’ Surf stayed open through the night, but this year to save money and allow employees to dive, the shop weighed lobsters from 7 to 10 a.m. Saturday morning.
Lobsters were lifted out of coolers, crates and nets to be weighed on a large, deli style scale. The biggest lobsters were placed in a white plastic basket to ensure every inch was weighed. Some lobsters were still itching to escape.
Ian Herweg, a welder by day, made two dives and managed to grab an 8.21 pound female lobster that put up a good fight, indicated by three missing legs and a broken antenna. He won the Lobster Mobster contest two years ago and was hoping to reclaim the title.
Herweg’s zeal for diving started as an alternative to a grander dream. “I always wanted to be an astronaut. I became a diver instead because the ocean is the closest the average American is going to get to space,” Herweg said.
He felt good about his catch, but, based on past experience, he thought a bigger lobster would win the contest. “I honestly think a 10 pounder is going to roll through because the lobsters were out walking, not hiding.”
Free diver Don Harris, an engineer, didn’t even bother bringing in his lobster to be weighed. “I think all the SCUBA guys get the biggest ones,” said Harris. “I didn’t bother weighing the lobster because they changed the rules. You used to have to bring the lobster in to get a T-shirt, but now you just need to pay five dollars for the shirt.”
Dr. James Cassidy, a psychologist, arrived at the weigh-in with seven, modest size lobsters, which he laid out on the pavement with his dive partner’s matching set, creating an ad hoc moving lobster collage. He has participated in every Lobster Mobster contest since 1976 and has 34 T-shirts to prove it.
“In the 1970’s when I caught a 12 pound lobster I wasn’t even in the top 10,” said Cassidy. “One time I grabbed one and ran out of air at the bottom, I had to buddy breath to get back to the surface.”
Matt Pifer, a lifeguard and swim coach who has been diving since he was six, fulfilled Herweg’s “10 pounder” prediction by showing up with a huge, complacent lobster that weighed in at 9.94 pounds. It barely fit in the white plastic basket, with several legs and antennae sticking out.
All the divers were secretive about their dive locations. “I got this lobster somewhere in the Pacific Ocean,” Pifer said. What does a diver do with such a large lobster? “I’m going to let this one go because the bigger they are the older they are. This one is probably older than my grandpa.”
Pifer showed up halfway through the contest and left not knowing he would win.
Lobster fishing in California
According to California Lobster Diving, the first recorded account of California spiny lobsters being taken for sport is in Richard Henry Dana’s book Two Years Before the Mast, which chronicles Dana’s west coast travels from 1834 to 1836.
Much has changed since Dana’s sailing adventures up and down California’s coast more than 170 years ago. Now lobster fishing is regulated and falls within two types: commercial and recreational. Doug Neilson, an associate marine biologist for the Department of Fish and Game’s marine region, who works on the resource management lobster project, said the main differences between the two fisheries are traps, access and money.
“The commercial fishery is allowed to use traps,” Neilson said. “The recreational fishery is catch by hand during diving, or you can hoop net for them.”
“The commercial fishery is limited entry, so not anyone who wants to do it can go down and get a license,” said Neilson. “The recreational fishery is open to anyone who can go down and buy a fishing license and a lobster report card. If they fish exclusively off of fishing piers they don’t even need the fishing license, but they still need the lobster report card.”
And lastly, commercial fishermen can sell the lobsters they catch, while recreational fishermen can be fined for selling lobsters.
Commercial lobster fishermen can catch as many lobsters in season as they want, but that’s not true for recreational lobster fishermen. “Anybody doing recreational lobster fishing is allowed to have seven lobsters in their possession. That means if they’ve got two on the boat and five frozen back in the freezer at home they essentially have their limit and until they get rid of some, they can’t catch more,” explained Neilson.
Commercial fishermen must record the number caught in log books, while recreational fishermen must use lobster report cards to tally their catch. Lobster report cards are sold at dive and fishing stores for around eight dollars and require fishermen to record the location, date, type of gear used and the number of lobsters kept. Based on these methods, the Department of Fish and Game data indicates an increase in the commercial lobster catch between 1976 and 2000. “Since about 2000, they’ve been catching at or above 300 metric tons of lobster a year, that’s fairly consistent,” said Neilson.
But there is very little data on the number of lobsters being caught by the recreational fishery. “About 32,300 [recreational] lobster report cards were sold in 2009 and 27,500 in 2008, so there are a lot of cards out there,” said Neilson. “We’re getting back about 6,000 to 8,000 depending on what chunk of time you look at, so a very small amount of them are actually returned.”
The California spiny lobster
The California spiny lobster or Panulirus interruptus is very different from its more famous, east coast cousin. The American lobster or Homarus americanus found off the coast of Maine is known for its large claws and for being served on dinner plates across the country. The fame associated with the American lobster is reflective of the size of the east coast lobster fishery. In 2009 a record 75.6 million pounds were caught by Maine fishermen. That’s more than 100 times the size of California’s average 300 metric ton catch (approximately 660,000 pounds).
Instead of claws, the California spiny lobster possesses strong mandibles that serve as teeth, perfect for chomping sea urchins, clams, mussels and barnacles. The head of the spiny lobster is accented by two long antennae for sensing the dark ocean floor. California spiny lobsters are naturally bright red. Their east coast cousins sport a bluish exterior until turning red after being boiled in a pot.
The lobster fishing season takes place after breeding season ends, in early October and lasts through the middle of March. There is a size limit to ensure lobsters live long enough to reproduce. A legal sized lobster is three and a quarter inches along the carapace, which is the thick spiny shell between the eye socket and the tail.
“The minimum size of the lobster is based on the idea that it takes a certain number of years to reach that size,” said Neilson. “The lobster becomes reproductive at around five years old or so and that size limit allows a lobster to spawn, to have babies, for at least two seasons. That way, the fishery isn’t taking lobsters before they’ve had a chance to reproduce, that would be bad.”
When it comes to age, lobsters are always “around” some age range. The difficulty in knowing a lobster’s age stems from their design. Lobsters are members of the phylum Arthropoda, the broader scientific classification that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans. They share several traits with their distant bug relatives including a segmented body, jointed limbs and an exoskeleton. (“Bug” is also an endearing term used for lobsters by divers. A common phrase at the contest was “Put the bug on the scale.”)
In order to grow, a lobster must shed its shell through a difficult process called molting. The lobster must rip off its old shell and then replace it with a new larger shell. This type of growth makes determining a lobster’s age impossible. Lobsters molt more frequently when they’re young. Pifer said it best, “The bigger they are the older they are.” But how old is anyone’s guess. Estimates on how long lobsters live range from 50 to 150 years old.
The status of California spiny lobsters today
The Department of Fish and Game is doing a stock assessment to estimate spiny lobster populations in Southern California. Neilson said that an apparent uptick in the recreational fishery created a need for a better understanding, but that nobody was “jumping up and down upset or concerned.”
Dr. Hunter Lenihan, a professor at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, has been working with commercial fishermen to evaluate the lobster fishery and has reached a different conclusion.
“There is some indication the continued catches that appear to be at stable levels are also associated with an increased effort,” said Lenihan. “We don’t know exactly the relationship, but the effort is increasing through time, so there is some concern.”
“That concern is an ecological concern, but also a concern for the fishery itself. The commercial fishermen are aware of that concern and in recent years they’ve tried to limit the number of traps per fisherman. But that was not accepted by Department of Fish and Game because of complex issues with enforcement.”
Lenihan emphasized that the true wild card in the lobster fishery is recreational fishing. With the advent of hoop nets, recreational fishermen now have access to a device that replicates the workings of a trap. “So what you begin to have is almost like an unregulated trap fishery,” said Lenihan. “Catching them by divers going and grabbing them is one thing. But trapping them in these hoop nets where you bait them and go out and grab them is a whole different ball game, which could have a potentially serious impact on lobster populations.”
The other factor potentially impacting lobster populations is size. Cassidy’s fond memory of a 12 pound lobster not being in the Lobster Mobster top 10 in the 1970s could be fact or the classic glorified “big fish” story of the one that got away. But in general, the average size of lobsters caught today is smaller.
“A 10 pound lobster would be unusual, but are probably still out there,” said Neilson. “The trophy lobster is now considered a five or six pound lobster, so it’s changed.”
California spiny lobsters can grow to weigh as much as 25 to 30 pounds. According to data collected by the Department of Fish and Game, the largest lobster caught weighed in at 26 pounds and was caught by a diver off the coast near San Pedro, most likely in the 1940s. Based on collective memory, Dive’ Surf staff thinks the biggest lobster to win the Lobster Mobster contest weighed more than 15 pounds.
Today these monster lobsters are rare and this hurts lobster populations reproductively.
“Larger lobsters, especially big mothers produce a huge number of eggs compared to smaller mothers,” said Lenihan. “So if you had just a few very big females, they produce many more young than a larger number of smaller females.”
How many eggs can a very large female produce? Millions.
While California spiny lobsters and American lobsters are very different, reproductively the largest female lobsters of both species share the ability to reproduce exponentially larger amounts of eggs and offspring. This is a common trait among many ocean species.
Based on this concept, the State of Maine implemented a maximum size limit of five inches along the carapace and requires the same minimum size of three and a quarter inches. These rules apply to both commercial and recreational fishermen. “From the biological perspective it is pretty straight forward. Protecting large lobsters serves to stockpile the reproductive potential of the stock,” said Carl Wilson, a leading lobster scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources.
In California, some commercial fishermen already let large lobsters go because they are harder to sell and inconveniently large for restaurant plates. Also, large lobsters aren’t the best eating according to Alex Smith, a property manager by day, who also participated in the Lobster Mobster contest.
“A big old lobster, they don’t usually taste very good,” said Smith. “I think it’s their age, it’s not just that they’re huge, they’re older. It’s like eating an old cow, it’s not going to taste as good as eating veal. Not to mention the big pot you would need to cook it whole.”
Alex Smith and Dan Bissell take their competition for the biggest lobster to the next level.
Soon some lobsters will have one more way to avoid hot water. According to Lenihan, once marine reserves become effective early next year as part of California’s Marine Life Protection Act, approximately 25 percent of lobster habitat in southern California will be protected. The concept behind marine reserves is to “protect 25 percent and then within the reserves those 25 percent begin to produce more such that you influence the populations outside the reserves to increase the potential production in the fishery and how much they catch,” said Lenihan.
He is working with commercial fishermen to ensure that access to the remaining 75 percent of lobsters is enough to keep the fishery thriving. “We are doing that by a collaborative program we developed called CALobster. It’s the idea of getting scientists, fishermen and managers together to collect the data we need and to use in models and other analyses and then figure out the optimal way to fish and to protect the ecosystem,” said Lenihan.
Based on his research at existing reserves along the Channel Islands, it takes time for lobster populations to increase and eventually impact the fishery. “It’s been five years and we’ve seen a big impact on the population of lobsters within the reserves. It may take a longer period of time to see the impact on the [neighboring] fishery itself.”
It’s Lenihan’s hope that “local fishermen working with scientists can figure out the optimal way to fish in their region within the regulatory framework that’s set up by the state.”
The monster lobster
Winner of this year’s Lobster Mobster event was Matthew Pifer with his 9.94 pound catch, which he later released. Photo by Carolyn Kraft
After the three hour window closed on opening day, Pifer’s 9.94 pound lobster was declared the winner and Herweg’s predication of his own second place fate held true.
Pifer did indeed let his winning lobster go.
“We let him go on the rocks in Redondo Harbor and I think he’s definitely going to survive,” said Pifer. “We watched him crawl away into the water until we could barely see him. It was a nice feeling letting him go.” ER