Stacks of lobster traps are reappearing in Naskeag Harbor like the beginning of Lego® constructions. The inshore lobster season is winding down and many of our lobster fishermen are starting to bring in their lobster traps to trailer them to storage. It’s all part of a yearly cycle.
As I understand it, the lobsters are undergoing their winter migration into deeper, offshore waters, where they’ll be trapped by fewer winter fishermen using larger vessels. The season for soft-shell “shedder” lobsters peaks in the summer. Late summer and fall are when most of the lobsters grow into their new shells, which harden. The colder water reportedly causes the lobster meat to firm up and fill out its newly-enlarged shell, producing what many consider to be the best (and somewhat more expensive) “hard-shell lobsters.”
As for the lobster boats, many of our coastal fishermen will be cleaning them up and converting them into scallop-dragging vessels that will start dredging for those delicious mollusks in December. A mast and boom will be added to the boat for the “drag” (the metal, wood, and rope dredging purse net), and probably a wooden “shelling house” to shelter crew members who are shucking the scallops out of shells during the winter.
A relatively few fishermen will also be diving in underwater gear for the mollusks this winter, hand-harvesting the pricier “divers’ scallops.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 27, 2025.)