Florida's 48-Hour Fishing Frenzy
Thousands flock to Florida to hunt lobsters, and it's not all fun and games.
ISLAMORADA, FLORIDA, July 25, 2007— -- Up and down the Florida coast today, there was a game of underwater cat and mouse. The quarry: the spiny Florida lobster, the tropical cousin of the Atlantic lobster found off the coast of Maine. Unlike their northern cousins, these lobsters have no claws but the tail meat is a delicacy.
Fishermen try to snag their prey with nets standing on the bow of their boats, others from water snorkeling or with scuba tanks. They are not quite as easy to catch as you might think … but that's the fun of it.
Today was the first day of the annual Florida ritual known as lobster mini-season, a 48-hour frenzy. Anyone with a license can fish for these lobsters nine months a year, but this little mini-season is so popular because it gives recreational fisherman a two-day headstart on the commercial fishery.
Bob Schneider was scuba diving today in 20 feet of water, delicately trying to navigate one particularly evasive lobster into his net. He surfaced victorious, pulled the lobster from the net saying, "Sometimes they don't really want to get in your net."
In places today it felt as if everyone in the state was after the same lobster as boats loaded with snorkelers and scuba divers converged on prime lobstering spots. An estimated 20,000 people descended on the waters of the Florida Keys for this mini-lobster hunting season. Thousands more are doing the same thing on the coasts farther north. Fortunately, it seems there are more than enough lobsters to go around.
Timur Tugcu grew up lobstering in the Keys. Today he was out with with his parents, his sister and a friend in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico just off Key Largo. After just half an hour of snorkeling he returned to the boat, lugging a bag bulging with lobsters -- "probably about 12 or 15," he estimated.
He dumped them onto the deck, where they twisted and writhed at his feet as he measured to make sure they met the legal minimum size. That's not a problem … these are big lobsters, some are 2 pounds or more.
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