Ever wonder, asks Arthur Reynolds, old-time colleague and former member of Bord Iascaigh Mhara why, in the season of festive and luxurious eating, one rarely sees a lobster in the shops? From time to time the Dublin supermarkets offer cooked frozen Canadian lobster tails, which are just above the minimum legal size, but their flavour has mostly been left behind on the other side of the Atlantic.
He goes on: The reason is that the lobster is very sensitive to disturbance by wave motion, as its nerve system is linked to its shell. So, not wanting to be bumped or jostled, they move into deeper water or hide away in deeper rock holes well away from lobster pots. They also dislike fresh water, and will die quickly if left in it.
Not that really big lobsters are ever caught in pots or traps, since they cannot enter the funnel hole. Big ones get taken in trawls or tangle nets. And speaking of large ones, off the Cornish coast there is one of over 50lbs that is regularly visited by divers but is not disturbed. In Ireland it is illegal for a diver to take any lobster.
While if big lobsters are relatively safe to crawl about in their watery environment, tiny lobsters are prey for many fish. For that reason B.I.M., in conjunction with a local co-op and rural development board, runs a hatchery at Carne, Co. Wexford which has released 25,000 juveniles this year and will step this up to 50,000 a year for the next three.
But, unlike prawns, they are slow growers, so that when you are eating even the smallest legal size lobster, note that every minute's chewing has taken a year to grow. That is, five to seven years.
On a certain part of the east coast a retired fisherman used to go out in his rowing boat to haul his few pots and often as not he was "under the weather" when doing so. Then younger colleagues got the idea of boiling a lobster to put in one of his pots. They said that if he went out "under the influence" he certainly came back sober. A good story, Arthur. Thanks.