This usually is a pleasing spring sight here. As with emerging flowers, we look forward to seeing lobster traps and buoys all clean and neat and sea-ready being trailered to the water.
This year, however, the covid-19 pandemic has made everything uncertain for lobstermen (male and female). Consider just this one fact: two of the best markets for Maine lobsters are cruiser ships and China. But, perhaps there is time for answers to unprecedented questions to be found.
The lobster fishing season normally is slow in the April-through-June quarter taken as a whole; the number of boats going out usually is building then. State statistics indicate that, on average, 69 percent of active fisherman have their gear in the water by the end of June in normal times. Those data also indicate that things usually peak for Maine lobstermen during the July through November a period. That’s when they sell 84 percent of their annual catch, which accounts for 80 percent of the overall value of the Maine harvest. (Brooklin, Maine; image taken May 7)