Went lobster hooping and...

wow too much exitement..

we went hooping saturday night, the admiral was at the helm backing up into the upswell side of a rock jetty while i was prepping the hoops and toosing them out.

the 2-5 ft swells were pushing us uncomfortable close to the rock jetty but we got the hoops dropped but managed to run over one off the hoop ropes.

pulling the hoops we reversed, I was at helm going straight in while admiral was in the bow pulling up the hoops.

didnt catch anything... but sure was an adventure.

next time we are gonna do it from our large RIB instead.

This is why we don't fish or crab from the GB...... Too unwieldy of a boat, particularly in close quarters with island shorelines, rocks and reefs.

Per wrote:
wow too much exitement..

we went hooping saturday night, the admiral was at the helm backing up into the upswell side of a rock jetty while i was prepping the hoops and toosing them out.

*

next time we are gonna do it from our large RIB instead.

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Per

I'm not familiar with the term "Hooping" are those like what we call crab rings up here? A ring with netting inside?* Here we use mostly crab pots/traps with about 50' of line and a red/white buoy to mark each one, set and retrieve them over night.* No lobster this far north, but some excellent Dungeness crab fishing.* Just sent in my crab catch card for the summer fisheries, second year in a row I darn near filled it up. Didn't even fish the last three weeks of the season.
We set the gear off the stern and retrieve off the bow.* I've picked up my share of line in the wheels over the years.* Mostly other people's who use floating (polypropylene)*line.***It's illegal to have floating lines here, but they do it anyway. *
These Californians are great fishing platforms with the walkaround decks and the twin engines let you position and hold over submerged rock mounds and reefs. One of the best non commercial hulls I've ever owned.*

Per, Please tell me what Lobster Hooping is? I've never heard the term. Over here in Florida we dive for them and grab them with our hands, no claws to deal with. The other way we catch them is with a Bully Net. A bully net is a long handled net with the hoop bent at 90 degrees to the handle. You go in a small boat at night, in shallow water, with lights shining in the water. When you see a lobster you put the net down over him then scoop him up. As a recreational fisherman, I'm allowed to put out 5 stone crab traps during the season. Last year a buddy and I ran ten traps. By the end of the season we could find only two. We caught only a few crabs and boy were they expensive.

We set and pull both crab and prawn traps off Gray Hawk's bow.* When setting I make sure we're tossing the traps into the wind so that we'll drift away from the set as we pay the line out.* I come upwind to pick up the traps and then we wind the line using a winder that I made to fit on top of our vertical anchor windlass.* It pulls the line at about 150 FPM so it doesn't take us long to retrieve the traps, even when we're fishing for prawn at 200+ feet.

The hardest part for us is retrieving the floats from Gray Hawk's high foredeck.* They disappear from my view at the helm long before we're on top of them but after a while you get a feel for where they are even when you can't see them and Marilyn gives me direction as we get on top of them. When she gets hold of the float I put both engines in reverse and goose them once to make sure we don't ever drift over the set.* We tried exactly once to retrieve them from the swim grid - never again.* We were lucky to get out of that one without a diver.

yes a hoop is similar to the ring nets, they come in a variety of configuration but the typical configuration is a ring around 2 -3 ft diameter with netting on the bottom and some sort of pocket for bait. the other side of the ring is attached to 3 ropes tied to a small floating buoy which again is tied to your rope, at the end of the rope we tie on a plastic milk jug.
when we set out the trap we toss a glowstick into the milk jug, this way its much easier to find them later when you come back to check on them, which should be done once an hour or so. In california it is not legal to leave the traps overnight.
when you pull up the hoop, you have to be swift yet smooth so that the catch will stay inside the hoop net.

Per:

As a Mainer I have to ask where are the claws on that THING that looks a bit like a lobster? Why is it reddish instead of greenish, or is it already cooked? Is it a west coast mutant? :jawdrop: :shocked:

*

:teevee:

dwhatty wrote:
Per:

As a Mainer I have to ask where are the claws on that THING that looks a bit like a lobster?

*

Click to expand...

*It's a California cockroach.

California has made it illegal for our lobsters to have claws...they might "put your eye out".* The lobsters have complied.

LMAFO...

they are called california spiny lobster, and yes this species has no claws.

my personal favorite is New England lobster, but this one is no bad either.

my preferred way to cook them is Puerto Nuevo style, named after a small mexican turist trap just south of the Tijuana border.
basically you slice the whole lobster down the middle, clean out all the yucky stuff.
then you rub the two sides with fresh chopped garlic and seasalt, toss them on a deep pot with two inches of hot oil or lard and basically fry them.
served with black beans, warm tortillas, melted butter and obviously margaritas (or cold beer).

but i have to catch some first....

Giggitoni wrote:
California has made it illegal for our lobsters to have claws...they might "put your eye out".* The lobsters have complied.

Click to expand...

*

****** Marin wrote:

It's a California cockroach.

___________________________________________________________________

Those are as good explanations as any I suppose.

Per wrote:
basically you slice the whole lobster down the middle, clean out all the yucky stuff

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"After you skin 'em and clean 'em there ain't much left."

As one who is not particularly fond of this arthropod, crustacean, or whatever its classification, your procedure makes sense since, as far as I am concerned, after all the yucky stuff is gone there isn't anything left worth eating, and never was in the first place.

When I asked Walt once if he liked lobster, he replied something like; "Don't send me none of those bugs on ice".

Connoisseurs of this bug love the yucky stuff. i.e. the greenish "tomally", picking over the body and sucking on the legs. Shiver.

Catch a lobster, clean it, then throw it all over the side, and throw the hamburger on the grill.*

Feel welcome to send me some of those on ice any time.
I pass on the intestate green/black stuff though.

dwhatty wrote:Per wrote:
basically you slice the whole lobster down the middle, clean out all the yucky stuff

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Connoisseurs of this bug love the yucky stuff. i.e. the greenish "tomally", picking over the body and sucking on the legs. Shiver.

*

First time I ever saw this, we had a couple and their kids from Hawaii on board and we took them crabbing. We were boiling some crab up and the kids asked if they could spoon the "crab butter" (yellow and green yuck floating on top of the water.) *I said, "knock yourself out!!" and prompting found something else to do on the boat.

The second time, my Spanish girl friend's mother was visiting from Madrid, we boiled up some prawns and when we broke the heads off to eat them. *She would suck the yuck stuff out of the prawns head.

I'll stick to the white meat, thank you very much! *

Per wrote:
they are called california spiny lobster, and yes this species has no claws.

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So far as I know none of the Pacific ocean lobster have claws.* They are all spiny lobsters.* They live in the reefs in Hawaii and if you see a fellow who's a diver and has a finger missing, it's a pretty safe bet he lost it going after spiny lobster in the reefs.

The lobsters often share their holes in the reef with moray eels.* What you see when you go after lobsters in the reef are the antennas sticking out of the hole or just inside it.* The only way to get the lobster is to reach into the hole, grab it, and pull it out.* The lobster itself won't hurt you, but if it is sharing the hole with a moray, the eel will clamp down on your finger and not let go.* As these eels easily reach six feet or more in length and are massive in girth, one big flip of their body once they've got their teeth in your finger will take the finger right off.* And since they're down in the hole, you can't get the finger back to sew on.

In my Hawaii fishing days I had a number of acquaintences who'd lost fingers to morays through lobster diving.* One reason I never got into diving in Hawaii in a big way. I figure the ocean is full of animals with really big teeth and they don't come out and bother me so why should I go in and bother them.* I had no problems with mucking about on the surface trying to catch them until the day we had an "encounter" with a pair of sperm whales about 30 miles off the north shore of Oahu.* That got me thinking seriously*about applying my "don't go in" rule to the top of the water as well as down in it.

Here are some "bugs" recently spotted at a roadside stand. The big guy has an amazing paint job.

*

Yep Rick that's right.
Here in Aus that is exactly what we call them "Painted Crays"

Marin wrote:Per wrote:
they are called california spiny lobster, and yes this species has no claws.

Click to expand...

So far as I know none of the Pacific ocean lobster have claws.* They are all spiny lobsters.

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Quite so, same here in Oz and NZ, only over this side we call them crayfish, whereas over in the North America I think crayfish do have claws, and here we have freah water lobsters which do have claws.* So it's a funny old world isn't it?*

Talking bugs, however, the nicest tasting crustacean we have here in Oz, is something we call the Moreton Bay bug, and it tastes fantastic but looks as ugly as its taste is nice.* You only eat the tail flesh - that's all there is. They have no claws and their legs are tiny, and in under the carapace, so they look like some pre-historic trogolidyte.* They are not found much more widely than within a band running up from Mid to Northern New South Wales and across the top of Australia and halfway down the other side of West Australia, and in parts of Asia and East Africa according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thenus_orientalis

Thenus orientalis


-- Edited by Peter B on Wednesday 5th of October 2011 06:11:38 AM

"Catch a lobster, clean it, then throw it all over the side, and throw the hamburger on the grill. "

*

Pure blasphemy!

There is NOTHING better than a fresh bug dipped in garlic butter!

my motto " all lobsters must die"* and I do my best to uphold my motto

HOLLYWOOD

hollywood8118 wrote:
"Catch a lobster, clean it, then throw it all over the side, and throw the hamburger on the grill. "

*

Pure blasphemy!

There is NOTHING better than a fresh bug dipped in garlic butter!

my motto " all lobsters must die"* and I do my best to uphold my motto

HOLLYWOOD

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The guy in blue in the first pic doesn't look too happy at the prospect of a bug dinner.


-- Edited by dwhatty on Wednesday 5th of October 2011 09:59:21 AM

We're all water people here.* But, have you ever seen the reaction of someone born and raised in "fly over country" the first time they see a crab pulled out of the bay?* Hilarious.

For you Aussies, "fly over country" is anywhere not on a coast.* You just fly over on your way to the other coast.* I don't know why people live there.

*

*

Edelweiss wrote:
*

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The second time, my Spanish girl friend's mother was visiting from Madrid, we boiled up some prawns and when we broke the heads off to eat them. *She would suck the yuck stuff out of the prawns head.

*

*I was at an asian restaurant and on the menu was deep fried prawn heads. they say they are like potato chips.*( I didn't try them) When I was shrimping commercially a lot of people wanted them with heads on. If you leave the heads on they spoil real fast.**It is where the bacteria begin to grow first.

Don't you folks from Lousiana* suck the heads of crawdads, crayfish. Or do you call them mud bugs.

SD


-- Edited by skipperdude on Wednesday 5th of October 2011 03:28:41 PM