The lobstermen of North End Lobster Co-Op on Westport Island reported improvements in catch volume this season but expressed disappointment in the state of the industry.
“The lobster industry [has] really been hammered over the last few years,” Stott Carlton, Captain of the Edna Mae, said in a Friday, Sept. 24 interview at the co-op. “Our expenses have gone up, but what we get paid for our lobsters hasn’t changed significantly in 10 years. In fact, if anything, it’s gone down.”
Carlton, of Edgecomb, a lobsterman for 12 years, fishes part-time. “I used to fish 450 [traps], now I only fish 100,” he said. “I’m starting to retire.”
“It’s a tough situation for us,” Carlton said. “We’re sort of squeezed in the middle because what we’re getting paid per pound isn’t keeping up with the cost of living.”
Carlton compared the plight of Maine’s lobstermen to that of the owner of a gas station. If the wholesale price of gas kept rising, but the owner couldn’t raise his price, the gas station would quickly begin to suffer.
“I worry about the young folks that have kids,” Carlton said. “Are they going to be able to survive and make ends meet?”
Tim Chadwick, the manager of the North End Lobster Co-Op, said that, since he started work June 1, the co-op’s members have hauled approximately 160,000 pounds of lobster. Chadwick, of Alna, a former lobsterman himself, is in his first year as the manager and doesn’t have figures from previous years, but he thinks the numbers are up.
The boat price, however – the price lobstermen receive for their catch – remains static. Currently, it’s $3.10/lb. for softshell lobsters, or shedders, and $4.50 for hardshells, which are rare this time of year. “It takes three or four days to get a crate [of hardshells],” Chadwick said.
On the table, of course, lobster is much more expensive. The ever-popular lobster roll can range in price from about $8 to over $20. Lobster dinners, similarly, range from about $10 to upwards of $30.
Chadwick sells the co-op’s lobsters to Rocky Coast Lobster, a wholesaler with offices in Woolwich and Boothbay Harbor. On average, Chadwick said, Rocky Coast pays 50-60 cents over the boat price, typical for area wholesalers.
Chadwick also sells lobsters to individuals at the co-op for $4.25 and $5.50/lb., respectively, but Rocky Coast buys the vast majority of the catch.
About 16-18 lobstermen fish out of North End, Chadwick said, including members from Damariscotta, Edgecomb, Richmond, Westport Island and Wiscasset.
Chadwick began his brief career as his father’s sternman in Port Clyde “at least 36 years ago,” he said. Now, “the price is about the same,” he said. “I think it was a little lower… It hasn’t moved much, that’s for sure.”
Diesel fuel, on the other hand, is $2.68 a gallon, up slightly from last year, and bait, another major expense for lobstermen, costs $120-$125 a barrel. After the co-op tacks on a small surcharge to cover operating costs like electricity bills and maintenance for the bait cooler, the enormous expense of the occupation is clear.
Chadwick estimated that the lobstermen use one barrel of bait for every 100 traps “if they’re lucky.” Using his estimate, the cost of bait for 600 traps is $750. “Since the first of September, we’ve gone through 720 barrels,” Chadwick said.
About seven or eight lobstermen are out at midday Friday. Most leave at about 5:30 a.m., returning between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., but two part-timers, Carlton and Charlie Ashton, pull up at the dock around noon.
Ashton has been a lobsterman for 20 years and a fisherman for 20 years before that. Now, “I just dabble,” he said. Ashton only fishes 30-40 traps, but just two years ago, he had 600.
In 1997, before the formation of the North End Lobster Co-Op, Ashton had a cooler at his house and would order and store 20 barrels of bait at a time. “It was $47.50 a barrel,” Ashton said – just a fraction of today’s price.
How much bait each lobsterman uses “depends on how heavy you bait the traps,” Ashton said. He used to use a barrel for every eighty traps, he said.
At the 1997 price, that’s $356.25 for 600 traps. At today’s price – $937.50. If Ashton were to fish 600 traps twice in a week – a typical rate, according to Chadwick – that would be an $1162.50 bite out of his profit.
“I think the volume’s there but the price isn’t,” Ashton said. “My son fishes [full-time]. I know he’s done well.”
While the news of economic struggle is old, this season has been different in other ways, too, Carlton said. “Everything’s happening a little early,” he said. “Spring came early, summer came early, fall came early. We’re just getting our second shed right now.”
Despite everything, Carlton remains positive. “It’s a great job,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything else.”
George Richardson, the longtime chairman of the Westport Island Board of Selectmen, was a lobsterman until an injury forced him to leave the trade in 1977. “You’ve got a whole mess of things that are affecting the price of lobsters,” Richardson said in a Sept. 29 phone interview.
“We got too many fishermen, too many traps,” Richardson said. “With the restrictions on catching herring, bait prices go up.”
As fishermen struggle, “lobster wars,” or struggles over territory – different, in local fishermen’s eyes, than the territory outlined by the state – also cut into profits.
“One of the problems is these recreational fishermen don’t even know how to set a trap,” Richardson said.
The recreational fishermen, who fish under different rules, set their traps incorrectly, causing damage to the gear of commercial fishermen, he said.
Other fishermen are hamstrung because they’re unable to fish the maximum number of traps – 600 in some places, 800 in others. The state limits the number of traps, Richardson said, but they keep track by the amount of tags they sell.
Some fishermen, with no intention of fishing the maximum, still purchase the maximum number of tags “just in case the bureaucrats restrict [purchases] to the number of tags you had last year,” Richardson said.
And, of course, the economy – not just in Maine, but worldwide – doesn’t help.