The 2024 lobster season has brought Maine fishermen something they haven’t experienced in recent years: A sense of normalcy.
After several years of volatile price swings for their catches, unpredictable harvests, and increased costs for everything from bait to fuel, this year is shaping up to be unusually ordinary, lobstermen say.
With the fall harvest still to come, fishermen so far have reported steady if unspectacular catches, stable prices, and a ready supply of bait. As they head into the home stretch, fishermen are hoping for a strong catch for the remainder of the season.
Kristan Porter, who fishes out of Cutler in Washington County, said the lobster season in his neck of the woods has started sooner than usual in recent years, with shedders showing up in traps weeks earlier than their customary time. This year, however, the shedders began arriving at their usual time, a welcome change from the recent past.
“In the past few years it’s been a few weeks early, but this year seems to be a little more normal and hopefully [the catch] holds on later,” said Porter, who’s president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “The jury’s still out. It’s still early, but August was pretty decent. We’ll see what happens after that.”
The catch first topped 100 million pounds in 2011 and peaked at 132.6 million pounds in 2016.
At Fifield Lobster Co., a lobster dealer in Stonington, owner Travis Fifield said this year for the most part has been steady—prices are up a bit, fuel costs are down somewhat, and the offshore catch has been picking up.
“I’ve been telling people it’s an average sort of middling year,” he said.
Lobstermen in far-flung places like Matinicus and Criehaven have reported robust catches, said Sam Belknap, director of the Island Institute’s Center for Marine Economy. Elsewhere, landings have been steady and prices seem to be a little higher than last year.
Lobstermen welcome a return to normalcy, said Belknap, who had a student lobster license when he was in high school. His grandfather was a lobster fisherman, as is his father. With shedders arriving close to the traditional time of year and stable prices for lobster, it’s easier for fishermen to run their businesses.
“By and large, this year has been as close as I can recall to the way it used to be when I was growing up,” he said. “In recent years the only thing that’s been steady has been the uncertainty.”
Lobster by far is Maine’s most valuable commercial fishery, bringing in hundreds of million of dollars to the state’s thousands of lobstermen.
The catch first topped 100 million pounds in 2011 and peaked at 132.6 million pounds in 2016. Since then, there’s been a downward trend, with landings coming in at 93.7 million in 2023—the smallest harvest since 2009.
While lobster prices always fluctuate, the price swings have been particularly wild in recent years. Prices went from an average of $4.21 a pound in 2020 to $6.71 in 2021 before crashing to $3.95 in 2022, according to the Department of Marine Resources.
Prices rebounded to $4.95 a pound last year and appear to be higher this year. Fishermen lately have been getting over $5 a pound and the price has been holding.
Chris Welch, a lobsterman in Kennebunk, said he was receiving $5.50 a pound for new-shell lobsters, and $6.75 a pound for old-shell, in late August.
“We had a good [price] drop in the spring that got us all nervous, but prices have rebounded to a comfortable spot for this time of year,” he said.
There’s also been no shortage of bait, with strong catches of menhaden (also known as pogies) off the Maine coast fortifying the supply. Besides herring and menhaden, lobstermen often use frozen fish, such as rockfish, as bait. The prices, too, appear to be about the same as last year’s prices, and cheaper than several years ago when there was a bait shortage, Welch said.
While things overall appear steady, the lobstering varies along Maine’s long ragged coast. What is true in southern Maine may be different from what’s happening along the midcoast or eastern regions of the state.
Bob Baines, who fishes out of Spruce Head, said the fishing in his area of Penobscot Bay has been spotty. “It’s not bad fishing, but there aren’t lobsters in places where you’d expect lobsters. I don’t know, ask me around Thanksgiving and I’ll tell you then.”
He added: “We’re plugging along I guess is the best way to put it.”
