Everyone is being hit hard by the high cost of petroleum, noted Clive Farrin, President of the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association. “Just look at the number of things you touch with your fingers every day that are made with petroleum,” he said. Fishermen, with their reliance on boat and truck fuel, as well as traps, buoys, spindles, rope, breakaway links to satisfy whale regulations and other items made from petroleum, are being hit especially hard by the current rise in oil prices.
Diesel fuel has gone up from around $1.26 to $1.35 last year to between $1.95 and $2.00 and higher on the mainland, to $2.35 on Vinalhaven in mid-April, an average increase of about 70 cents a gallon.
Bait has increased at least $5.00 a barrel since last year, ranging from $60 to $75 on the mainland. Fishermen all along the coast are apprehensive about the possibility that bait prices could rise dramatically, and are watching it even more than current fuel prices. “I travel two miles to my first trap,” said Pat White, Executive Officer of Maine Lobstermen’s Association, who fishes out of York, “and my boat engine idles most of the day. We’re fairly territorial and the rise in fuel price won’t have a huge influence on what I do. The price of bait will be the bigger item. When the big boats go out dragging, they use 60 to 70 thousand gallons of fuel a trip. There could be a considerable change in bait prices if they have to go to Georges Bank for herring instead of getting it closer to inland.”
Farrin, who fishes out of Boothbay Harbor, said by the time a fisherman fuels his boat, buys bait and pays his sternman, he is out $300 to $400 before he puts anything in his own pocket. Dick Bridges, who is on the Board of Directors of the Stonington Co-op, estimated with current fuel prices and another possible rise in bait prices, the boat price for lobsters will need to hold at $4.00 for a fisherman to make a day’s pay. “It’s hard to say,” he admitted.
Add in uncertainty about the catch. Water temperatures were four to five degrees lower this year in mid-April than they were last year, when lobsters waited until mid-August to move inshore and shed (rather than the usual mid-July). In mid-April, Stonington fishermen were averaging one-third to one-half pound a trap.
Add it all up and there is a lot that could cause fishermen to modify their usual fishing patterns: high fuel price, increased cost of gear and bait, slow start to the season with resulting low catch, boat price not adequate to offset the additional outlay. Members of the Stonington Co-op who live in Penobscot, Brooklin and Blue Hill have already changed their driving habits, Bridges said. “They don’t come down to the shore every day now. They used to come and check the boats.”
Farrin said if worst came to worst, play time would take the first hit. “I usually spend a lot of the summer traveling to boat races,” he said. “I’d probably have to shorten that up. He speculated that if it came to the time when fishermen couldn’t afford to go out – you’d just tie up, or you’d send your sternman home, and that would bring up safety issues of one guy trying to do the work of two or three.”
“We can adapt a little, cut off one day a week of hauling,” White said. But for now, each person interviewed agreed that fishermen are waiting and seeing. “Everybody wants to leave things the way they are,” said Bridges. “Try it out – wait and see.”