Lobster: Thoughts and tactics

[Fro-in-shorts]

Got down the beach about an hour before high tide wearing the bear essentials (shorts, wetsuit boots, tshirt) Slapped on some sun cream to avoid cooking, and wandered down to the low tide mark, and started poking around under boulders. Dont want to give too much away, but this hints for free, lobsters consider any rock too big for a guy to lift up to be a suitable house. Found the patch I usually dive around and started methodically looking under each one, helps if you either lie ontop of the rock (watch out for sea anenomees I ended up with a colossal chin last time I went, got stung to shit in the face), or get low and go into a press up position. Was checking out prospective haunts, failed at my first choice spots and was working some smaller rocks in about 1 ft of water, putting my hook under to feel, if you poke a lobbie in the face it will move and you can feel the vibrations on your hook (conger eels are squichy). Saw a claw flash out then nothing for about 5 min, thought id been imagining the claw, tried poking under the rock next door, about 5 ft away encase the origional lobbie had fled under there, turns out it had, it spooked and started trying to scuttle away, at which point I grabbed it, measured it and bagged it. Second lobbie was about 5m away in another group of rocks, got the hook involved under all of them (won't stick my hand under a rock that i can't see under for obvious reasons) felt nothing but really thrashed the hook around to try and scare stuff out, but got no response. I turned around and started working a new rock and after about 2 min something bumped into my foot from behind me, really made me jump. Hello lobbie no 2. number 3 fell about 5 min afterwards I had exhausted my supply of half submerged bolders and was wandering across a gully with a boulder wedged in it, saw what I thought was an ormer, or the fleshy foot of one exposed underneath. I went to investigate and found half a smashed crab pot bobber, behind it however was a lobster, under the rock but high and dry, easy pickings. Was walking back with the tide when I noticed a hole with some broken shell strewn about, looked deep but turned out not to be, saw the outline of 2 claws, well the tips anyway, so got the torch out and spent 15 minutes using the beam trying to coax the lobbie within grabbing range. After 15 min was salty, cramped and annoyed so slid the hook in and gave it a good prodding from the side, it inched forwards so i grabbed it. 3 ormers 4 lobbies, and mild sunburn, a result in all, hope u enjoy the essay

 

[foxfish]

Nice essay although I think you meant you went down an hour before "low" tide.

 

[Fitzy_1982]

Thanks fro- in-shorts. Need a good story when I cant get out and catch anything myself. Heading out now this saturday and hopefully wont come home empty handed:rcard

 

[Fitzy_1982]

Myself and NZRegan had a 6.30am start yesterday morning and headed 2.5 hrs into the west of Ireland. Flat calm seas, sun shining, cracking scenery, but no fish. How and ever, we picked up a nice haul of spider crabs. We picked up 10 in total, the biggest was a little over 1kg but all within that kid of size. We probably put back as many undersized spiders. We kept only males and left the females be. There was serious activity from the spiders, we saw a few getting it on so left them be, it must be mating season. Regan picked up a decent ray but that's his story to tell

We had dropped a berley and were hanging around to see what might pop up but it wasn't too fruitful. It brought out a couple of small spiders but no sign of any lobster. The best way to get them was to get down into the kelp and have a root around.

Dont know what temp the water was but after a couple of hours I couldn't feel my feet anymore so we decided to head in. It was a long swim in though because we kept getting sidetracked into picking up more spiders.

All in it was a cracking day, got chatting to a couple of locals after the dive and got a couple of spots for scallops to try on the next trip.

 

[bobdonny]

looks good!

 

[Fro-in-shorts]

cracking catch, tastier than your standard brown crab, good size claws on them too.

 

[Fitzy_1982]

in the middle of cooking them now, 2 were dead, I wonder are they still ok to eat even though they were only caught yesterday.

 

[foxfish]

Wouldn't fancy eating one that died the day before I cooked it! (or even one hour)
How did you let them die?

 

[Fitzy_1982]

I left them outside in a box overnight with a towel over them. They were all alive at 6pm yesterday.

 

[foxfish]

You can keep them alive for days (lobsters for weeks) in a fridge or in a slightly vented cool box with a coupe of ice packs in.
They are very temperature sensitive & don't like anything above 8-9c out of water.

 

[devondave]

I'm with Mart.
I wouldn't eat any shellfish that's been dead more than an hour.
Sometimes you see crabs on stalls with froth around their mouths, still alive, but would not eat those either.

 

[Fitzy_1982]

Thanks for the advice, I discarded the 2 dead crabs:rcard. I'll know in future, lesson learned.

 

[tonyeynon]

Great thread guys, really enjoyed reading it A few questions if thats okay. I cant find the size limits for them anywhere - any ideas? Are there different rules for male and females?

Also, how many pots can you put out, I had previously though you needed a licence or something. But after looking on ebay you can buy them for under a tenner and they collapse down to nothing when done, so popping them on my float would be easy.

I have a week in a caravan book for next month and its right in front of a great fishing spot so if the bass arn't forthcoming I intend to get some serious crustacean hunting on the go I've only ever seen Spider crabs before so a lobby would be ace