Lobster Season a disaster?

[Catalyst]

Does this story make any sense? If the harvest was down and the price also went down then it sounds like there is a demand problem not a supply problem.
With the price being so low I wonder if a lot of commercial guys focused on other fish species to make up the income.
I'm sure they'll want to tighten the recreational regs since the price and commercial catch is supposedly down.
In the Palm Beach / Jupiter area I had one of the best seasons I can remember.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localne...r_Harvest.html

KEY WEST, Fla. — Commercial lobster fishermen in the Florida Keys say a "disastrous" spiny lobster harvesting season has come to an end.

Florida spiny lobsters brought around $8 a pound early in the season that began Aug. 6.

The season ends Tuesday. Fishermen say prices have fallen to $3.75 a pound. At the end of the 2007-2008 season, prices remained around $8 a pound for the seafood delicacy.

Fishermen say several tropical storms that brushed past the Keys chased away the lobsters. The low market prices make it harder to cover crew and fuel costs, which can total $500 a day.

Lobster experts are still totaling this season's catch. Monroe County fishermen caught 3.7 million pounds of spiny lobsters last season, down 1 million pounds from the previous harvest.

[normanhghntr]

yes it makes sence, this is i believe why, costs for the fishermen are tremendous in the keys, dockage crews fuel to say the least, and at least fuel prices are down, the local fish markets are ridiculous and i know because im a restaurant owner and i by from them every day. they are not paying the fisherman fair prices for their catch. We do not buy local lobster any more as many of us wont pay the exorbanant average of about 18.00 a pound for whole spinys, the yield on these is mabey 40-50 percent. so say we get an 8 o/z tail out of our 1 lb lobster the rest is stock or trash depending on what we are making that day. that brings our cost to 18.00 for 8 o/z or 1 portion of lobster for a plate. to make a reasonable food cost for a fine dining restaurant which is about 33% we would have to charge 59.40 for your dinner
so you bringing the family? instead we buy whole maine lobsters which the yeild is about 60 to 75 % for half the price tops. same is for stone crabs, who is going to come in and pay 38.00 for a lb of jumbos? you feel like your ripping peope off. so no more stone crab or spinys in our place. the other option if frozen cryo vac from south america, indonesia or whereve else you can get spinys, they are delicious and about 15.00 a lb but 100% tail only
so instead of 1 tail for 18.00 you get 2 tails for 16.00, dropping the price per order to 8.00 a tail or 26.40 for an awesome fine dining experiance!

sorry that dragged on,

[swimslikefish]

It was a good year for lobster here. Not as good as 15 years ago, but just as good or better than the last few years.
I dive Key Largo and Miami.

[B Lang]

All the trap lobster were caught by divers from miami to palm beach during the crawl after Fay. The fish houses were buying everything up and freezing it. Some of the divers were waiting a couple months for checks from some of the fish houses. China and Europe are the big buyers of South American/Bahama lobster but their economies are in the crapper and nobody is buying up the supply so they send it to whoever will pay(normon). Everyone knows what happens when there is to much supply. Sounds like the trapper's need to set more traps

[hammerhead786]

It was the best lobster season I have seen here in over a decade! Haulover to Hillsborough... Even the last months of the season were no problem to find limit. I consistantly caught huge bugs... Funny what a little distance can do. I kept planning to take a keys trip but it was so good up here this year I never made it. From hearing this i'm glad i didn't! As for the demand being down it goes with the economy. The same thing happened with stone crabs. People aren't going to spend $$$ when times are tough like they will when they're riding the gravy train. It's kind of like trying to peddle 30 dollar bottles of fruit juice... or maybe not?