The bait crisis facing Maine's lobster fishermen is causing them to cut expenses and might lead to a drop in the state's overall harvest, as fishermen set their traps later this spring and may take them up earlier in late fall. The crisis is mainly being caused by the slashing of the herring quota, including an 84% cut for the inshore Gulf of Maine, so fishermen have been looking for other sources of bait.
     "We can't just be fishermen now. We need to become extremely good businessmen. We have to watch the bottom line," says John Drouin of Cutler, chair of the Zone A Lobster Council. Fishermen will have to be careful how they spend their money and where they place their gear so they don't lose traps or line. "If we want to survive, we have to count all our pennies."
Perry fisherman Jesse McPhail agrees, noting that lobster fishermen are "baiting way less" this year.      The bait crisis "will make people tighten their belts. This year you have to pay attention to the nickels and dimes." He adds, "It's costing about everything you make now."
     Most Cutler fishermen are still able to use herring that were salted last fall, while Drouin is baiting with menhaden, known as pogies. The menhaden fishery had ended in the state at the end of June, with the state's quota being reached, but it was reopened in July for an additional 4.7 million pounds, and then on July 22 the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) announced it would remain open as another 4 million pounds became available through quota transfers from other states.
     While the price for pogies is about the same as last year, when it ranged from $90 to $135 for a five-bushel barrel, the price for herring may be more than twice last year's. During 2018 herring bait cost from a low of $35 to $44 a bushel, Drouin says. Based on what a southern Maine fisherman indicated for herring prices this year, he says he would be paying between $85 and $88 a bushel, or over $400 a barrel. "They would lose money at $85 a bushel," Drouin says of lobstermen, noting that he uses 15 bushels a day, so one day's bait would cost over $1,000. With average catches of perhaps half a pound a trap during the summer, he says he can't afford that price. Remembering when a truckload of herring bait cost only $20 back around 1981, he observes, "Now $20 doesn't even buy one a bucketful of it."
     While the demand for bait "is not yet fierce," he says, it's expected to become so later in the season, as the herring and menhaden quotas are reached.
     Although herring is the preferred bait of choice for lobster fishermen and some people will pay higher prices, Drouin says, "There's a cut-off for everybody." For him, it's $60 a bushel. As long as pogies, redfish, rockfish, haddock racks are available, fishermen will switch to use them for bait. In addition, Cooke Aquaculture recently announced it has received approval from the DMR to sell blackbelly rosefish from off Uruguay as lobster bait. Most fishermen also are supplementing herring with pig hide. "They're trying to stretch it out and use less herring than normal," Drouin says.
     McPhail also has been using pogies and pig hide for bait for his 300 traps. McPhail had previously been fishing with his father, Angus, and this will be his first year on his own. The pig hides are coming from a number of suppliers Downeast, and he's hoping that herring will continue to be brought over from Canadian seiners and weirs. Reportedly, the price for herring from Canada may be the same as last year.
     McPhail also has been selling crabs, which he never used to do, for 40 cents a pound. "It's better than no cents. It helps."

Shorter season predicted
    While Drouin understands the plight of herring fishermen, who have seen their quota slashed but still "need to run million-dollar boats," he says they can't just pass the higher prices on to lobster fishermen. "They will have to take a cut, too," he says, pointing out that he can't tell the lobster dealers that they have to increase the price he gets paid.
     Drouin predicts the lobster season will shorten up, with fishermen taking up their traps sooner in the late fall, as it becomes uneconomical to keep fishing. That already happened this spring, as fishermen set their traps later than usual. "Everybody has been very slow this year," he says, noting that he saw few traps in the waters Downeast during June. Lobster fishermen have been waiting until more lobsters show up and for the price to increase. But he notes that the boat price for hard shells has been lower this year, with the current price being $4.80 a pound, while last year it was at $5.25.
     Drouin didn't set his traps till five weeks later than usual, near the end of May. However, McPhail notes that fishermen are pushed to set their traps early in the season in order "to hold their spot."
     As the season shortens, there will end up being less effort in the fishery, Drouin predicts, and the state's overall catch may decrease.

Local efforts to supply bait
     Earl Small of Eastport is among the fishermen who are trying to lessen the pinch of the bait crisis by catching herring. After seeing a Rhode Island design fish trap last year, Small built one himself, placing a bottom net in the trap and putting a polar circle salmon pen inside of the trap so that it wouldn't collapse in the strong tides in this region. The trap is kept in place by four large anchors, so it can be moved. The fishermen can either raise the net on the bottom or seine the trap to remove any fish.
     After receiving approval for the fish trap from the Eastport City Council on July 15, the next morning Small removed 9,200 pounds of herring, which he sold to Lighthouse Lobster and Bait in Eastport. "People are desperate for bait," he notes.
     He hopes to continue to supply bait for local lobster fishermen. Along with the purse seiner Fundy Gem and the lobster boat Miss Meliss, Small recently purchased from Portland the 60-foot carrier Jenny Rose, which can hold about 35 hogsheads or 41,000 pounds of herring.
     Small is only allowed to catch 25,000 pounds of herring a week with a purse seine or stop seine. Purse seiners can only fish from 6 p.m. on Sundays through 6 p.m. on Thursdays. The fish trap can fish seven days a week, with the fixed gear set-aside for herring having a quota of 39 metric tons this year in Area 1A. The total quota for herring in Area 1A is only 4,354 metric tons, down from 27,743 tons last year. Small expects the herring quota will be filled by the middle to the end of August.
     Small also is working on transporting herring from Campobello and Grand Manan weirs and stop seines. While he has approval from U.S. and Canada customs agencies, he still was waiting for approval from the Department of Homeland Security.