Spiny Lobster Season in San Diego County

By the time I arrive at the marina, I’m already late. My uncle, a second-generation lobster fisherman, has docked his boat and is busy moving stacks of Brute barrels off the bed of his pickup truck. It’s the second day of the season. 

“You better get down there.” He knows I’m anxious to play photojournalist with my iPhone like I do every year. “They’re about to start unloading.” 

Oct. 4 marked the opening day of spiny lobster season for commercial fishermen in San Diego, and foodies rejoiced across the county. Closer to home, the energy was electric. My father, a licensed commercial lobsterman, had been preparing for months. He’s had his permit for as long as I can remember, but never fished it with the tenacity of my mother’s brother or their father, who was one of the first and most influential lobster fishermen in the industry. For dad, it’s always been for fun. 

Fishing for Spiny Lobster

The San Diego spiny lobster is sweet and delicate, and closer to a spot prawn in flavor than its clawed East-Coast counterpart. In fact the two species are hardly related despite bearing the same name on paper. The fishery for spiny lobster in San Diego is seasonal, limited, and highly regulated, making it not only a noteworthy delicacy but also a sustainable choice when sourcing local seafood. There’s only about 100 active permits in the region, which spans from Point Conception to the north and the U.S.-Mexico border to the south. Lobster is caught by traps with each individual commercial permit having a limit of 300 traps. (The trap limit is a newer regulatory change only added in 2017 due to excessive trap setting by some fishers.)

While a maximum of 300 traps per permit might sound like a lot, it’s important to remember the majority of permit holders are not maxing out their trap limits as the juice isn’t always worth the squeeze. Fuel costs are excessive, gear is a huge expense, and the actual physical labor of pulling the traps is grueling. There’s also no guarantee that traps will be full of legal lobsters when pulled. The lobster must be at least 3¼ inches long when measured in a straight line from the rear edge of the eye to the rear edge of the body shell. If a lobster is smaller than that it must be tossed back into the water. While egg-bearing females are legal to catch, many lobstermen will toss them back to encourage species propagation for the following year.

My grandfather, who is 88, retired from fishing five years ago. He sold his lobster permit and shifted focus to his garden. It wasn’t a full season off the water before he and my dad decided to start fishing a few traps under my dad’s permit. My brother-in-law, a double-board-certified physician, got his lobster crew permit and became their third set of hands. The first year they set thirteen traps, “just for fun,” then last year it was twenty, and this year they set about thirty-six. On opening day, they caught about twenty lobsters, which is about twenty-five pounds. My grandfather remarked that it was the worst opening day he had ever seen. In the good old days, he’d catch upwards of 500 pounds on the first day (with more than thirty-six traps of course). 

From Water to Wholesaler

When I make it to the dock on Day 2, my cousin is moving lobsters from their receiver on the boat to the barrels, where they will be weighed, transported, and ultimately sold to a wholesaler. I get the sense that they aren’t catching as much as they have in years past, but the mood is cheerful nonetheless. 

“It’s like horse racing, you win some, you lose some,” my uncle jokes as he sprays down the hydraulic pulley with WD40. “We pulled forty traps and caught fifteen pounds. The only reason we caught anything was because we pulled traps we didn’t pull yesterday.” The price of lobster changes daily and the rate could change significantly from opening week to week two. The numbers are mostly kept secret as the livelihoods of so many rest on them and they are constantly in flux. 

The commercial season goes from Oct. 4 through March 20 with the highest catch rate generally happening at the start of the season. “Every day gets harder,” my cousin says with a giggle, almost laughing at the insanity of the whole endeavor. From October to December, lobsters generally crawl in shallow, rocky waters closer to the shore. If you drive down the coastline, you can see the buoys from the traps bobbing a stone’s throw away from the surf. When coastal storms hit and water cools, lobsters move to deeper waters and fishermen follow suit. Traps set near the surf are often lost or destroyed in winter storms, and finding viable catch becomes significantly more challenging from January through March; so much so that many fishers pull their gear out of the water at this time. The fuel cost and physical labor expense are simply not worth it for many. According to NOAA, around eighty percent of the season’s total landings are made before the end of January. 

High Costs and Big Muscle

For those who do stick around and fish through the end of the season, the endurance just might be worth it. Last year after a most dismal opener, my uncle’s numbers actually started to pick up once the other fishers dropped off the scene. It was still nothing to write home about. It’s hard work, and it’s physically taxing. By the end of last year’s season, my dad could barely walk due to an ongoing knee injury that required surgery, and the arthritis in my uncle’s hands is not getting any better. 

The work is physical. Lobster traps are made one at a time and by hand out of a pliable wire mesh material. The wire must be folded and stapled together by hand. They are baited, weighed down with heavy materials such as bricks or rebar, and marked with buoys attached. While they are pulled with the help of a hydraulic pulley system, they still must be checked and opened by hand, baited, and redeployed. 

When I asked my cousin why they set only 238 traps this year instead of the max of 300, he said they ran out of time. Many traps will be lost and destroyed in winter storms. 

It’s not easy for small boat fishermen in the industry. The expenses are high and rising weekly, and the payoff is minimal after you pay for a crew and cover expenses. My uncle joked that his son was filling out job applications, but there is a kernel of truth wrapped up in that. With rising fuel costs and tighter regulations, small-boat commercial fishing is no longer a viable career path for many. 

Without a path forward, the small guys will be pushed off the water and only larger operations will be able to continue. This poses a threat to sustainability and accessibility to higher quality products. Larger fishing operations don’t adhere to the same simple standards that the small boats do because they don’t have to. For example, it is not illegal to retain more than one lobster permit, and then set upwards of 600 traps per boat. The larger tuna boats will set long lines and trail the fish dead on the lines for miles without properly bleeding and processing them at time of catch like a small boat fisher would when catching fish one at a time. (One reason why it is so important to know who is catching your tuna.)

Buying Seafood Responsibly

There is so much misinformation around the industry that pushes forward a regulatory agenda that actually lifts up the big guys and crushes the small ones. Local Fish, a new public-benefit platform founded by my cousin Tanner Saraspe, has been created to help uplift the little guys. The work these small fishermen do really is a labor of love and that love comes through in the final product. 

Local Fish was founded not only to offer support to fishermen and local chefs in San Diego County, but also to help consumers navigate the muddy waters of purchasing seafood. As conscious consumers, it’s important to ask tough questions around your catch like who caught it and how it was caught. The Tuna Harbor Dockside Market is an excellent place to familiarize yourself with local catch and interact directly with fishermen. The Fishery, El Pescador, Catalina Offshore, and Tunaville Market are all wonderful resources for finding locally caught and landed seafood. You can also find very fresh and locally caught fish at Point Loma Seafoods, H-Mart, and Vien Dong.    

As far as local seafood goes, the spiny lobster is one of the more expensive options. It is a rare and seasonal treat that is meant to be celebrated and enjoyed with loved ones. I get mine alive and killing them as part of the preparation never gets easier. In ancient times, the priests were also the butchers as they were the only ones fit to deal with the dilemma of killing to eat. In modern times, when meat and fish come cut, packaged, and wrapped in plastic, we have lost total connection with the source of our food. 

When you reclaim that connectivity, even in small ways, you live life with a little bit more thoughtfulness. As a consumer, it’s not easy looking the animal I’m about to eat in the eye, but it’s important. It’s a painful reminder of the value of what we consume. A reminder to be less wasteful, to be more intentional, and to celebrate the meal at hand. Sourcing local is just one small way that we can start to reconnect with our food systems and build community around our resources. 

You can follow along with Local Fish via their website or on Instagram.

Two Spiny Lobster Recipes to Try:

Spiny Lobsters With Escargot Butter

Fancy Lobster Salad With Toast Points and Caviar