A “beautiful smelling bait?” Herb Hodgkins of Hancock, who uttered that oxymoron should know. He has been testing a new concoction for researchers at University of Maine in Orono and vows that women will love it. “They’ll let their husbands come in the house with their fishing clothes on,” he says. “They even might bait up the bait bags the night before he goes out.”
Although that might be enough for some people, the soybean-based bait has other attractive qualities. Tests Hodgkins has run, baiting 20 strings of four traps, alternating herring and the soy bait on each string, have shown it fishes as well as and sometimes better than herring. Videotaped tests using both types of bait have also shown that lobsters have a marked preference for the soybean bait. Hodgkins has conducted the tests for two summers and says he is anxious to see if the results are as good during winter and spring fishing. “You know, when lobsters are real hungry after shedding in August and September, you could put in your boot and you might catch one,” he says.
The bait, which is treated with chemical scents university researchers have determined attract lobsters and crabs, has held up well in the two types of containers Hodgkins has used, a porous polyfoam fabric that is wrapped around the bait and a cone shaped container which is placed in a bait bag and can be re-used about three times. “It holds up better than raw herring in a bait bag,” Hodgkins says, “from three to ten days depending on water temperature. When it’s warmer, the bait is more apt to ferment.” And, he adds, although the bait is attractive to lobsters and crabs, sea fleas, one of the biggest predators for herring in a bait bag, don’t particularly like it.
Robert Bayer, Director of The Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, says researchers at the university have been working on and off with artificial bait for about 20 years, but that steps taken by Dr. Juan Carlos Rodriguez Sousa during the past year have moved the experiments forward to create a bait that really works.
“We’ve had enough days when the bait fished as good as or better than herring that I feel confident we’re onto something,” Bayer said. He has been looking for an entrepreneur who would like to take over manufacturing the product, probably, he thinks, someone in Maine who already works with feeds. The soybean material being used in the bait comes from Maine.
A soybean-based bait is attractive for its sustainability. Soybeans are readily available and will not carry diseases that have been associated with Australian and New Zealand lobsters baited with herring. (This disease, Sousa emphasized, does not affect the American lobster.) “Using an artificial bait eliminates the problems of using natural bait that could be food for somebody somewhere,” he also noted.
Sousa sees a potential international market for the artificial bait. He will test it in Canada, Australia and Japan. Presently, the countries “down under” obtain their bait at great cost from Norway, and because of environmental concerns, use of artificial hide baits is prohibited there. A less expensive, stable soy-based bait could be a great boon to their fisheries. Sousa also believes the bait could be used instead of expensive squid in crab traps and possibly for other kinds of fishing. Bayer said that eventually, with the addition of nutrients, the soy product might be an effective feed in lobster pounds and aquaculture farms. Research at the University of Maine has shown if the bait is eaten by lobsters, the flavor of the meat is not affected.
At this time, both Hodgkins and Bayer see the bait as being potentially useful as a complement to herring rather than replacing it entirely. “It could take some of the pressure off the herring fishery,” Bayer noted, and Hodgkins said fishermen could keep it on hand to avoid the situation two or three years ago when bait was so scarce some of them could not go out to fish. “The industry really needs something for backup,” he said, adding that if the soybean bait worked as well as herring over the long run and was not more expensive, he could see fishermen switching over to use it year round.
Research for the soy-based product has been funded in part by money donated by an Eastport summer resident to his alma mater, Purdue University, with the provision it be used to benefit lobster fishing in Maine; the United Soybean Board and recently, by Kikkoman, makers of soy sauce. Sousa is presently on the faculty at Purdue, conducting post-doctoral research at University of Maine at Orono.