September 27, 2018 — At the height of the season, Brooklin lobsterman David Tarr spends $600 to $800 a day to bait his traps with herring, pogies or redfish.
While some Maine lobstermen swear by herring, Tarr is willing to play the field based on price and availability. Unlike most of his peers, Tarr also has the luxury of a personal bait cooler, which allows him to buy bait when the price is right, salt it himself and store up to 200 barrels of it away – $40,000 of bait, enough for a half-season of fishing – for use during tough times.
On Wednesday, one day after the New England Fisheriesy Management Council voted to recommend slashing the yearly herring quota by 80 percent, Tarr figured tough times are coming. He plans to spend the spring stocking his bait cooler before the lobster season kicks into high gear and bait prices go up, possibly doubling at the peak of the season.
One thing that Tarr probably won’t be doing in the spring? Lobstering.
“At a certain point, it is just not worth it,” Tarr said. “I won’t go fishing just to pay for my bait.”
Every lobsterman will be doing exactly the same math, Tarr said. They’ll look at their daily bait bill, and then lobster prices. Then they’ll figure out how much lobster they would have to catch just to cover their bait bill, and estimate the likelihood of surpassing that threshold. For Tarr, that means he needs to land three crates of lobster – about 270 pounds – to cover his daily bait bill alone.