Lobster quality ‘off the charts’
Shore price hits $8 in opening weeks of LFA 35 fishery
While the weather hasn’t been the best, “off the charts” and “beyond excellent” is the description of lobster quality in the LFA 35 fishery, which opened on Oct. 14 in Digby and in the upper Bay of Fundy.
“The quality is off the charts, full-meated and a top-quality hard shell,” said Colin Sproul, spokesman for the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association.
“We had an early moult this year, so shells hardened back up before the season opened,” he said. “Our quality is usually a good indicator for LFA 34 as well and the quality is just off the charts, some of the best I’ve ever seen in the start of the fall.”
Lockeport lobster buyer Mike Cotter of Cotter’s Ocean Products Ltd. said the quality of lobster being landed in LFA 35 is “beyond excellent.”
“The only problem is the weather is so bad it’s hard to get for them to get out but when they do get out, the catches have been pretty good and the quality unreal,” Cotter said.
Sproul said the weather so far this season in LFA 35 is “some of the worst weather I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”
“It’s been one gale of wind after another,” he said, estimating landings are down slightly due to the weather. But when fishermen get out, they are getting “decent landings.”
The LFA 35 fishery opened with a shore price of $7 a pound, rising to $8 in early November.
“Market conditions have never been better for selling Canadian lobster,” said Sproul.