D.J. King
	Lobsterman

How did you become interested in lobstering?

I became interested in lobstering, and it’s funny because I tell this story all the time. People ask me, why did I start lobstering, and I was, like I said, a little older than you guys, and who, how old, is anyone ten in here? That’s how old I was, ten, and I went with my father. We only had about ten of these traps, and I went out, and we pulled the traps during the summertime, and I think it was pretty much the whole summer long. I worked and worked and worked, and I went, and they had a big party, and they ordered our lobsters for the party. And I’ll never forget, that, I mean this is one thing that brought me in to it. I mean, the reason why I actually got into it was because I love the water, and I was a fisherman even when I was a kid, and I like the fishing aspect of it, to be out in the sea, in the water, in the air, and, I have done other things through my life, ah, but this is the way I paid through college, and then I continued this business afterwards, along with a couple other sideline things. But when I, when I was your age, we delivered those lobsters, and the guy, the person whose party it was said “Hold out your hand. I’ll pay you for these lobsters,” and I held out my hand like this and he went, “One, two, three hundred dollars,” he put in my hand, and I was a kid your age and I said, “Wow, that’s something!” Anyway, that’s one of the things that brought me into the lobster business.

Is there anything else besides lobsters that you fish for?

This is a periwinkle.  This is a smaller one, but they grow-they get to be bigger than this. and, these are a delicacy. They put him, the Italians like them a lot. Right here is the meat of this, and it’s called, I don’t if anyone’s had squingili salad. Probably none of you kids have ever eaten it but it tastes like, ah, and actually they use these some of you might have had fried clams before, but the frozen ones. Not the ones at Lenny’s or anything like that. You’ll notice in those things it says fried clams with other stuff. The other stuff is these winkles. They’re fillers, and they bread them, and they taste real good. They’re chewy, and, I don’t know. They have those frozen clams and I used to eat Howard Johnson’s fried clams, I don’t know if you kids know about that, Mrs. Polly’s, something like that. I used to eat them all the time. Anyway, there’s a big market for these now, and this is something we’ve been doing a lot more of now, is winkling because of the lobster business has, to supplement the income, because the lobster business is so low. This is just a hermit crab I happened to find, a spider crab, this is a blue mussel, we’ve got a lot of blue mussels around now. That’s just a few of the things I got.

What do you predict for the health of the lobstering business?

Right now we have a lot of lobsters that are about this size, and we’re optimistic about this summer. But probably the next summer we’re going to start to see those lobsters. Because remember I told you when they shed, they only shed once a year. Once they shed and grow out to the size, then we’re able to keep them. So those lobsters that are that size we’re hoping that they shed and grow big enough so we can catch them this year. But most likely, most of them will be the following year that they’ll shed. Some of them shed twice a year most of them only shed once a year. So what happens is, this year I don’t think it’s going to be a really great year. As long as we don’t have any major pollution events like I told you guys about meaning the three different ways or any really warm water, the warm water’s not a good thing for lobsters either, so any either one of those two things we don’t get those things and we’re hopeful for the comeback of this fishery and we’ve got our fingers crossed. Also the different regulations they put into effect, that’ll help keep more lobsters on the bottom. That’s our goal. Keep more lobsters, keep more females, on the bottom so that down the road we’re going to be able to have a fishery like we did before the 1999 dieoff.

How do you know where you can trap lobsters?

We have charts, there's a chart of Long Island Sound. It's basically a chart similar to a road map. Now Long Island Sound is shaped almost like a cigar, and New Haven is more or less right here in the middle of the cigar. Now I live in Branford which is just to the east, my fishing area is basically in Branford to the south toward Long Island including some Long Island waters. The way we got plots is kind of a first come, first serve basis. The person that's been in it the longest more or less gets the better areas, and as you move up and you have been out there longer, then you can move into the better areas. It is not regulated by the state at all. if you do it by a state lobster license, you can put your pots anywhere. it's more of a self-regulated thing amongst the different lobstermen out there.

Can you tell the difference between male and female lobsters?

This first little flipper here is just a thin feathery flipper and you can see all these swimmerets in here. The first one is a thin flipper. And on the tail those first two are a little bit harder, almost like these claws, and it’s hard to see and it’s right here. Some people like the tails, they’ll ask me if they want females to eat because the tails stand out a little bit more and they say there’s more meat in them. I don’t really know if that’s the truth, but this one curves in like this and this one fans out like that.

How do you determine whether you can keep the lobster or not?

When you have to measure lobster, it has to be three and a quarter inches from the eye socket to the back of the first section of the lobster’s shell. So this main carapace is what they call it, has got to be three and a quarter inches long, that's one stipulation the second one is if it has eggs on it or it is a female, you have to throw that back also.  Those are the two main reasons, it has to be of the right size. It is a gauge that looks like this, you put one end in the eye socket, the other end over the back. If the gauge goes over the back it is too small, if it goes on the range of the back, then that means it is a good lobster to keep. So those are the two reasons how you keep the lobsters. Either the size or also if they are eggers, or egg-bearing females.

What is the most dangerous part of lobstering?

The most dangerous part about lobstering is this rope here. This rope is the most dangerous thing because if it gets caught around you foot, and I'm always very conscious. Luckily I have never been caught. But, I won't even step on a rope. Because if this rope gets caught around you, we normally have a bunch of them tied together, and these pots go off quick. These pots over and it'll pull you right down to the bottom. Because you'll get tangled up, that's probably the biggest problem with most lobstermen. Luckily I haven't had any trouble with that. You have to understand that you are out there all day, sometimes eight to ten hours a day, we work just about every day in the summer. Out of the 90 summer days we are out there between 85 and 88 days. So after a while you lose attention to what you are doing. It can happen out there in a split second this rope can get caught around your foot and you're overboard. When you are over, especially in temperatures that are out there now, even though you think this water is warm, this water is cold. In 50 degree water you can only live a matter of half an hour, maybe an hour at the most. When it is even colder than this it is even easier to die. So you've got to be on the boat all the time, and that's why I always take an extra guy with me as an insurance policy. The other dangerous story that I can tell you about is a little bit hard to explain. These pots are tied in a trawl line, one pot is tied to another pot, they are all tied together. So I was pulling this trap and as I was pulling this trap a barge was going by me. He actually happened to hook into the lines that was on other traps. I didn't realize that he had hooked onto it and all of a sudden the rope started getting tight, tight, tight. It was a big, big barge with stone and a lot of power. All of the sudden our pots started flying overboard because it was getting dragged by the barge that was very close to us. We had to just stand back and let the pots fly overboard. Luckily the rope broke, but it was after all the pots were off our boat. But that was pretty close. The fog is also very difficult. Even though we have the instruments on board that show us exactly where we are. It is similar to latitude and longitude, it is called TD's - which is Time Differences, which is just another way of positioning yourself off the latitude and longitude lines. So we know just where we are out there all the time. We have radar to show us what is around us even in super dense fog. It is very easy to make mistakes, because boats come up on you quick.

Do you have any safety equipment?

We do wear gloves when we use them. It’s a trick to it. You have to try to get these lobsters out and you almost have a sense which way… You have to hold your hand and twist your body like this and try to pick them out. You have to pick them on the back like this but you have to keep your eye on the other one, because the other one is going for you.

Can you tell us about the life cycle of a lobster?

Here's another picture of the lifecycle of the lobster. The whole lobster here with the eggs underneath the tail, which look like little tiny be-bes. They start off in the water column like i said and eventually they go to the bottom. There's a striper eating one of the little baby lobsters and then these go to the bottom and live on the bottom in and amongst the rocks.

What did you bring with you in that bag that is moving around?

A live horseshoe crab. Now this is a female. Now these things walk, they will want to walk all over the place. And this is a male. The males are smaller than the females. And this is the time of year that these males hook on to the females. So the females do all the the swimming and all of the towing and the males are just along for the ride. All through this whole shell in here is all eggs. This time of year they go up in the beaches and right now, full moon in June, and they lay their eggs on the beach. You can these pinchers, but you don't have to worry about them, see they don't really hurt you. You can turn them upside down like this and they become kind of docile. The interesting thing about these crabs is they have been around from prehistoric times and they can live out of the water for up to two weeks which is pretty surprising. The way they do that is they have these big gills right here. The way that these little animals breath is they have sea water around their gills. Like a fish needs to have water around their gills, these need water around their gills also. Then they transfer the oxygen through the water into their system so they can live. As long as their gills are kept moist they can live. They have little pockets of water right in here now. The only way the die is if they dry out, because then they can no longer use the water to transfer oxygen to the water that is around their gills into their system. Similar to lobster they slow down when they are out of the water. They look dead, but if you pick them up, they start moving again. And they can live up to two to three days, even a week out of the water given the right temperature as long as they stay in a most environment. Actually these have blue blood. You'd think it would be like something from outer space, but the pharmaceutical companies take them, drain the blood, not enough to kill them, and they use it to make new special drugs to make people better. Then they take these animals and put them back in the water. Then they catch more and do the same thing. It is similar to people going to a blood mobile or something.

In what ways has the water quality changed since you started lobstering?

What quality? This is something that has been in the news lately. The actual industrial pollutants, like mercury, are almost non-existent any more. They used to be very high, and they used to be very prevalent in the water system. Especially in these rivers here and up here next to the UI Company. But now the big problem is what we all do and what some of the government people do. Some of the things we can all do to help minimize pollution are to be conscious of what we put into the drains in our house and onto our lawns. Some people over fertilize, put dandelion killers and poison on their lawns, not realizing that all those things, when a rainstorm comes, runs off and into the drains and eventually ends up into the water. Just because you put something into a storm drain you might not think it ends up in the water, but it very well does. We have one other big problem, which just happened here recently. We have a lot of sewer spills, which is actually untreated human waste, which goes into the water. This doesn't really affect lobsters the way it does some other things, but any pollution can ultimately affect all the sea life in the area. There is also a third thing that's really destroyed our lobstering and that is the pesticides. They had sprayed for the West Nile Virus to try to kill the mosquitoes, not realizing. As I showed you in this picture here, these little tiny lobster babies here look almost identical to the mosquito larvae, and they have almost the same properties. They spray the melathion into the water to kill the mosquitoes, but along with killing the mosquitoes, they killed the lobsters also. Basically, those pollution problems, are some that you can't control and some that you can control. The water is a lot cleaner now than it used to be, at least Long Island Sound. One thing that people don't understand about Long Island Sound is clarity sometimes doesn't necessarily mean that it is cleaner. Just because the water is clear, doesn't mean it is clean. It can have all kinds of terrible things in water. Like a clear glass of poison, it looks clean and clear, but if you drink it will kill you. Our water is not meant to be actually clear and clean. We have a lot of mud and sediment. When the wind blows like this it stirs up and it gets brought into the water column, and it isn't clear. It is not crystal clean and clear, but in fact it is clean. Clean meaning bacteria and pollution wise. So there are two differences, clear and clean are not the same.

What final message do you have for children that might be interested in becoming a lobsterman?

What final message? Don't do it! No, I mean it can be fun. It's something if you really like the water it would be something to think about getting into. But right now the lobstering industry is at a low point, and hopefully by the time you kids are up and a little bit bigger, it might be something for you kids to think about. As I said, these lobsters run in cycles. There is a seven year cycle to lobstering. Right now we are not only on the low part of the cycle, we also had the problems with the water quality of the sound. So we are not in great shape right now. So it is probably not something. The other thing that we talked about is that you need a special boat and you need these traps. So financially, it is a lot of money to get into it now. Also there are some regulations on getting some special licenses. You are only allowed to get a certain amount of traps so it is a pretty complex thing to get into as a kid right now. But you can always work on someone's lobster boat. There is actually a couple guys that I now right down here that are always looking. When you get older you can ask for a job on my boat or someone else's boat, especially if you are into the marine science aspect of it.