Southeastern P.E.I. lobster fishers prep for spring setting day
'We should be seeing significantly higher prices than we saw last year,' says lobster marketing board chair
Lobster fishers along P.E.I.'s southeastern coast voted to go back to their traditional spring start date this year, but they're going to have to start early again.
In 2023, for the first time, there were two opening days for P.E.I.'s spring lobster season. Setting day for boats on the Island's South Shore came four days earlier than the traditional opening of April 30.
Lobster Fishing Area 26A includes 365 boats from harbours along the southeastern coast of P.E.I., from Victoria up to Souris.
The spring season for LFA 26A was supposed to open on Friday, but has now been postponed until Saturday due to weather conditions.
The change of date in 2023 was proposed by the South Shore fishers for a couple of reasons, including avoiding having the season run into late July when lobsters are in their reproductive stage.
"We kind of decided as a group that we would like to eliminate fishing into July when it's the moulting season for lobsters," said Harold White, a co-chair of the area's lobster advisory board who fishes out of Murray Harbour.
But last year, the water was colder than normal in late April, and catches were down, prompting Island fishers to ask to move back to the traditional April 30 start date for 2024.
"The outside boats, the boats that fish ... usually 10 miles [offshore] or something, they thought it was good, but the inside boats thought that the water was a little too cold for them and they thought they might have lost out on some lobsters [last year]," White said.
"So we had a re-vote there this year and we ... decided we'd go [back to] the regular season, but Nova Scotia, they decided they wanted to keep it the same. So they voted 'yes' to stick to the 26th."
Fishers were also hoping an earlier start in 2023 would give them an price advantage by landing the first lobsters of the season, but that didn't materialize either.
"First one to the market, you do have a chance that you might get a little better price, but you never know what that's gonna be," White said.
"It could be an advantage to it, but we never really seen it."
DFO wants two years of data
White said Fisheries and Ocean Canada decided to keep the earlier start for this year so it could gather two years worth of data on the change.
"They thought last year the water might have been a little colder than normal, so they just want to see how it would work if we tried it one more year," White said. "After this year, we'll have a little better idea.
"If it doesn't affect the inside boats, maybe we will stick with this. But if it's another year where the inside boats are down in lobsters, probably they'll want ... the traditional start date."
Charlie McGeoghegan fishes lobster out of Pinette, which is also part of LFA 26A.
He said catches were down when the boats in Pinette started the 2023 season.
"Last year was slower than the previous four or five years for sure at the start because the water was so cold," McGeoghegan said.
"We had bottom temperatures that were in the 27-degree range. So it was the coldest we ever seen on the bottom temperature. The surface temperature here at the wharf is warmer this year than it was last year. So usually that means the bottom temperature will be a bit warmer too."
He said last year's colder water may have been an anomaly, so he'll be interested to see the results this spring.
McGeoghegan is also the chair of the Lobster Fishers of P.E.I. Marketing Board and, like many Island fishers, wonders what kind of price he'll get when he brings in that first catch of 2024.
"We don't know exactly, but it's gonna be better than last year. It should be significantly better," he said.
"As we've seen a couple weeks ago, the price was very high in Nova Scotia, the highest on record."
McGeoghegan said part of the reason for that is because catches in Maine are down an average 40 million pounds over the last five years, while southwestern Nova Scotia's catches were also down.
"There's a shortage of product and more countries wanting lobster than ever before. There's a lot of demand. So that means the price should be really high. It should be the best price we've ever seen."
He said expenses to buy and licence a lobster fishing boat are now in the $1-million range for some, so lobster prices this season need to reach double digits in order to help cover that.
"Even baloney is like $6 a pound," McGeoghegan said. "Lobster is a lot more premium product than baloney is, so we should be seeing significantly higher prices than we saw last year."
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