Lobster Season Not Just a Maine Event
Ivar Southern’s infatuation with the sea began as a toddler, when he watched his father tending lobster traps off Newport Beach. This week, he resumes his role in what has become a three-decade family legacy of lobster fishing off the Orange County coast.
Southern loaded his boat Friday with traps near the Balboa Pavilion. By Wednesday, the start of the commercial lobster season, Southern will have scattered 280 traps along rocky outcroppings between Dana Point and Huntington Beach.
“It’s hard work, but I don’t mind,” the 26-year-old Newport Beach man said. “What I like is the freedom, and being out there fishing alone.”
Southern is one of about 250 licensed commercial lobster fisherman in California. The local industry--and the lobsters themselves--are vastly different from New England’s.
By the end of the season, March 20, local lobstermen will have landed about half a million pounds of spiny lobsters, also known as rock lobsters. In Maine alone, last year’s haul was 56 million pounds.
The crustaceans vary too. Unlike the Maine variety, local lobsters don’t have claws, said Kristine Barsky, a marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game and coauthor of “California Lobster Diving.”
The California spiny lobster is found in warm waters from Monterey Bay to Manzanillo, Mexico, with the majority between Point Conception and Magdalena Bay, Baja California. The nocturnal lobsters favor rocky habitats and caves and can live for 30 years.
Commercial fishermen typically use wire traps that are baited with whole or cut fish and sit on the ocean floor. They must throw back anything less than 3 1/4-inches long from the forehead to carapace, where the tail begins. That means lobsters that are caught are typically at least 7 years old, allowing a healthy brood stock for mating and keeping the fishery stable.
Much of the haul used to be sold to Japan and other Asian countries. But as the Far Eastern economy weakened, local fishermen have been trying to create a local market.
Ivar’s father, Wayne Southern, has sold his lobsters to the Blue Water Grill on Lido Isle in Newport Beach for years. Matriarch Linda, who helps coordinate sales, is listed in owner Jim Ulcickas’ Rolodex as “Lobster Linda.”
The restaurant, which buys some 6,000 pounds of local lobster during the season, already has received calls from regulars who want to know if the tasty crustaceans have arrived yet, he said. “We’ve really developed a following for it.”
Ulcickas said he buys the lobsters--typically 1 1/2 pounds but sometimes as large as 5 pounds--right off the fishermen’s boats at the pier in front of the restaurant.
The lobsters are whisked into the kitchen, where they’re boiled, cut in half, and flat-grilled with butter and fresh garlic.
This is where the biggest controversy in the local lobster industry arises: Which tastes better, Maine or spiny?
“I’m not bagging on the East Coast--that’s their heritage,” Southern said. But a local lobster, “it’s a true lobster.”
Fisherman Ken Calvert of Huntington Beach always heard that local lobsters are tastier. He wouldn’t know for sure, though. “I’ve never had one from Maine.”
Barsky, the marine biologist said, “Purists will always tell you they can tell the difference. . . . If you boil it nicely, I don’t think you can tell. They’re both tender meat.”
