It’s lobster mini-season in South Florida and participants were already hitting the water.
It’s back. And maybe wetter than ever.
Lobster hunters braved rains and thunderstorms at Crandon Park Marina in Key Biscayne early Wednesday to haul in their annual crustacean catch.
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The two-day lobster mini-season officially began at 12:01 a.m.
Cameron Spooner, 11, headed out on a pontoon boat with his parents, ready to catch lobsters underwater in the dark.
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His favorite part? “Seeing all the cool creatures and all the things down there," Spooner said.
Some hunters begin just after midnight and hunt until dawn. Hunting grounds are a closely guarded secret.
“Our strategy is to go out there to our favorite spots, hopefully nobody has found out about our favorite spots,” said participant JP Merino. “We go out there and we kill it."
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Hunters must abide by the rules. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there’s a bag limit of 6 per person in Biscayne National Park and Monroe County, 12 per person elsewhere in Florida. And the spiny lobsters can’t be too small, either. Each carapace - measured from the start of the tail to just behind the eyes - must measure more than 3 inches.
Catching a lobster can be tricky. Some use tickle sticks or nets to haul in their catch.
“Make sure it doesn’t slip away,” explained Alejandro Valdes.
And while most people look forward to lobster dinners, Valdes does not.
“I’m allergic," he said. “We come out with the family, the whole night basically, get some lobsters and, even if I can’t eat it, it’s pretty fun."
Fun is in the eye of the beholder, when you consider the lightning and downpours that began around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.
“We got winds of up to 40 miles an hour,” said Demi Diaz, whose family has hunted lobster for generations. "We're soaking wet, felt like we were gonna catch hypothermia, but at least we got dinner for tonight."
