“Lobstering is going to be a part-time fishery here,” predicted Deer Isle lobsterman Perley Frazier of a now year-round fishery that started as a seasonal one. “Four or five years ago, someone said the only thing that will put the lobster industry out of business is expenses.”
He called the lobster back then healthy, beautiful. Although he thinks they still are, relaxing at his Burnt Cove living room on a recent Sunday afternoon, he said, “It’s going to go back to basics: real small horsepower. Everybody I know is hauling back on the throttle. They’re not running wide open like they used to.”
Ten years ago, he recalled, “It was all big boat, big power. Get there quick: haul more gear.” He said the big, offshore boats used to go back in at night, but that these days, they stay out overnight till they’ve hauled all their gear.
“Now,” he said, “there are no big boats left. They’re all in the 40-foot range and under, and they’re staying out now, too, just because of fuel.” Frazier runs his 35-footer with an economical German Deutz 442-hp engine, about which he said, “It’s a lot better on fuel than comparable engines.”
Engine dealers at the Fishermen’s Forum trade show also see a trend to smaller engines for inshore fishermen, according to the latest issue of Commercial Fisheries News. The headline said it all: “Engines: Fuel economy on fishermen’s minds.”
“We used to pack bait bags to the size of a softball,” Frazier recalled. “Now, they’re the size of a basketball. There are only three solutions: 1. Cut back on horsepower,” (which he’s already done). “2. Cut back on bait consumption,” (which he’s also done). “3. Cut back on traps.”
He followed that last solution quickly, by stating, “I don’t want to cut back on traps: we’ll all be going alone, but it’s going to come to that.” He then added, “A lot of people are going to drown. Forty foot boats outside in winter: Some of those boats will be gone.”
“It’s a dying way of life,” he continued. “When you see all these boats coming in at 10 knots when they used to be doing 30, just to conserve….” The days of racing each other in that led to the lobsterboat races are over. Nowadays, he said, “Everybody’s pinching pennies.”
Maine Department of Marine Resources lobster biologist Carl Wilson called cutting back on traps, “a sensitive subject and one the department and fishermen have been having up and down the coast. From the biology perspective, the fishery is going to get what it gets.” Asked to explain, he replied, “Well, the resource goes up, and they benefit; the resource goes down, and they have to tighten their belts. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that individuals will always catch more.”
But that still leaves the problem of switching over from floating to sinking line. Frazier plans to solve that by staying inside the 50-fathom-curve. He feels fishing inside means spending 30 gallons of fuel cruising at 18 knots rather than the 60 gallons a day he’d use fishing outside. Fisherman Leroy Bridges, of Sunshine, Deer Isle, on the other hand, says he simply can’t comply with the new rules.
“It’s not because I don’t want to,” he said. “I can’t,” and tried to explain why, saying, “Let me give you an analogy: Can you burn water in your car? No,” he said, answering his own question. “It’s very much the same thing. I need float rope to do what I need to do.”
Although he agrees with Frazier on using only four boxes of bait a day, advising, “Fish smarter, not harder,” Bridges doesn’t fish in spring. Of those who start earlier, he admitted, “Some don’t have the resources to allow them to do what I do.” Still, he suggested, “Stop fishing and don’t start until the third week of June. It’s habit. It’s a waste. The lobsters aren’t going anywhere.”
Whether they start early or not, many who fish lobster are searching for ways to add to their income. Frazier said, “Everybody’s trying to combine [fishing for] halibut and lobster.” Because the tides from Stonington east run so hard, fishermen can only haul their halibut trawls feasibly at slack tide: the hour at high and at low tide when the water is dead flat. Between those single hours, he explained, “They go back lobstering. At slack tide they quit lobstering and haul their trawls.”
Another sad way of cutting back, Frazier said, would be to close fishing to those trying to enter the fishery. Although he’s reluctant, he said, “[Zone C] will have to close fishing like the other zones.” At present, Zone C allows in all apprentices who pass the requirements. “It’ll have to be five out and one in,” he said, “and in a while it will regulate itself.”
But the nearly 60-year-old has made other changes to accommodate his years. “I used to fish four-foot lobster traps with cement runners for offshore,” he said. “Over the years, they take a toll. Now I fish with smaller and a lot lighter traps.”
He used to pay his sternman a quarter or a fifth off the top when expenses were $100 to $200 a day. He still does in spring, so his sternman can earn a living. But now herring for bait costs $39 per box. Fishing inside, he uses four boxes at $156 per day, whereas fishing deeper requires six or seven. Inside, he burns 30 gallons of fuel, at $4.42 per gallon. His day’s fuel comes to $132.60. Staying inside and cutting back on bait saves him $210 to $250 per day. When the shedders hit, he’ll pay his sternman a fifth of his earnings after expenses.
Looking to the future, Frazier has made an investment that will become his sole source of income when he comes in off the water. He and his wife, Caty, now own and operate a fish truck. In spring, he hauls two days a week and he and Caty sell seafood from the fish truck the other days. “As soon as the shedders show up,” he said, “I’ll be going every day, weather permitting.” As Caty Frazier works four days a week bookkeeping for the Penobscot Bay Press, Perley has hired someone to operate the seafood truck during shedder season.
That fish truck will make the difference for this lobster fisherman when the lobster fishery becomes part-time.