FLORIDA KEYS (24 July 2003) -- If you've noticed your neighbors and their boats just up and disappearing for a week or two in late July and August, the explanation is simple. Some 6,000 card-carrying Southwest Florida lobster lovers will head next week to the Florida Keys for the opening of the sport diving season — the last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday of the month. And this year many will extend their stays to take advantage of the regular lobster season opening Aug. 6, in a rare year when the two seasons are separated by only five days. The two days of diving for lobsters in the "mini-season" may have the single greatest impact on Florida's famously unfrenetic archipelago of any event all year. Although the regular season will last through March 31, about one-fourth of all lobster diving — almost 60,000 cumulative days — occurs during the two-day sport season. Some divers have literally never missed a season. Ryan Harris, 21, began making lobster-diving vacations to the Keys with his parents, John and Jo Harris of Fort Myers, when he was an infant. "We go there for sport season and the long season, too," Ryan said. Between seasons, they often go dolphin fishing in the Gulf Stream, but they are lobster specialists, through and through. | | Ryan said almost all of their "bugs," as Florida's spiny lobsters often are called, are taken free-diving, without benefit of scuba gear or portable air pumps called hookahs. They free-dive as deep as 30 feet, and almost always get their limits of six lobsters per lobster permit holder — sometimes with as many as eight in the 27-foot family catamaran. "It's harder than it used to be, especially during the long season," Harris said. "But now that we have GPS (satellite-guided navigation electronics), it's almost too easy." With decades of experience behind them, the Harrises head for the "back country" north of the Keys, where they work rock ledges in the seagrass beds, and hard-bottom areas with holes and fissures in which lobsters live by day. When possible, they focus on the larger caves in which many legal-size lobsters may be found at once, although sometimes they are forced to "troll" — drag behind the boat holding a tow rope or sea sled until they spy lobsters on the bottom. Although a lobster permit costs only $2 in addition to a saltwater fishing license, those tasty tails are anything but inexpensive. Keys divers are allowed six lobsters per day (12 elsewhere in Florida), and can expect to spend $120 to $130 in their quest, according to a 2001 federal economic impact study. |
