64 ABOUT LOBSTERS 



We were forced to work in tributaries of the Gulf 

 Stream where water temperatures at the surface were as 

 great as eighty- three degrees. It took a year to devise 

 mechanical means of sustaining the lobsters aboard a 

 boat. Now we can keep them indefinitely. We make 

 trips varying in length five to eleven days. 



Because trawling catches many lobsters oversize and 

 illegal for Maine, there is a problem in handling them. It is 

 not necessary for the trawler to go to a port in some other 

 state to unload the bigger lobsters: They can be landed in 

 Maine under bond so long as they are immediately trans- 

 ported out of the state. 



There is a feeling among some dealers that really large 

 lobsters are difficult to sell. They contain so much meat that 

 few customers can use them, and often the dealer has to 

 cook them and cut them up to get his money back. Some 

 customers have a belief that the meat of extra large lobsters 

 is tough. This is probably an error, and in any event many 

 epicures feel that such meat has more flavor. 



Very large lobsters are a good advertising exhibit when 

 shown alive in a tank. 



William C. Schroeder of the Woods Hole Oceano- 

 graphic Institution has published a pamphlet on trawling 

 that adds much information. The following information is 

 drawn from it: 



To the west and south of New England, the landings of 

 lobsters taken offshore with otter trawls have shown a steady 

 increase in the New York-New Jersey region during the past 

 few years. These catches, compared with those taken in- 

 shore with pots, show almost two to three times as many 

 lobsters taken by trawl than with pots ( 1954-1956). 



The tagging of lobsters from offshore depths, and their 

 recapture, indicates that these deep-water lobsters do not 

 wander far from their home. This implies that the offshore 

 lobsters live apart from the inshore ones, and furnish a new 

 lobster fishery which as yet has scarcely been touched. 



Experiences of fishermen trawling offshore have 



