DEER ISLE — Local fishing authorities in Maine’s busiest lobster region say newcomers must wait for someone else to give up their license before they can set traps in local waters.
The lobster council that oversees the area that includes Stonington and Vinalhaven, the top two lobster ports in Maine, voted 6-1 Thursday night to close the state’s last open lobster zone. The state’s other six regions already require apprentices who complete their training to wait, sometimes for as long as a decade, for others in their area to give up their licenses before they can fish.
“I was asked by an enormous number of fishermen to slow this thing down,” said council Chairman Hilton Turner.
With landings and prices both high, local lobstermen worry that outsiders are rushing to this area to cash in on the good times and catch lobsters that should be filling the pots, and bank accounts, of local fishing families. They are driving up the price of bait and forcing lobstermen such as David Tarr of Brooklin, who sits on the state Lobster Advisory Council, to spend his days unsnarling his gear.