Fishing San Diego Spiney Lobster is Harder Than You Think | Sourced

I've been fishing over 20 years commercially and fish for a lot of different things. Spiny lobster is one of them. A typical day starts at 4 30 in the morning and ends somewhere around sundown. Going out with Dan Major on his boat was very special to me not only because I got to experience firsthand what my main source of protein does day in and day out to deliver the best quality in the most sustainable way, but I felt connected like never before to my line of work and how essential and how important it is to know your source. It is extremely eye opening for me to see the amount of love, labor and effort that goes into catching just one single lobster. So you do that 100 times, 100 to 200 times a day. You know, sometimes it's 50 lobsters, sometimes it's 100 lobsters. That you have to throw back. Yes. We currently have 230 pots out fishing right now. We service our gear on a weekly basis, sometimes daily, but typical soak time for a trap would be one to three days. And so when we pull the gear up, we have to remove the old bait, replace it with new bait and then release the short lobsters, hopefully measuring and retaining the legal size ones. And the ratio seems to be about 90% on what you keep versus what you throw back. And that's typical of every season. Then a typical pot that fished well, it could be anywhere from 10 to 30 lobsters in that trap. Sometimes you keep six, sometimes you keep zero. You see a lot of short lobster and a lot of big lobster that you think are legal, but they're just a hairline short. And so that's next year's stock. And that's the way you got to look at it. And I've done an entire day to where I've only caught 20. Entire day, sunup to sundown. So it gets like that. Short. Oh, look at it. It was legal. And now it's not legal. That's how close it is. That little part of the shell right there. That's as close as they get right there. Big female. Short. Short. Oh my goodness. Short. Oh, look at that close. Just slipped over. And that's the reality. That's next year's stock. Next year. You don't even get plumbed out anymore. No, it's a game. It's fun. All you can do is laugh about it, you know. To be this close to your source, to understand how difficult it is to be a sustainable and responsible fisherman, producing the best product you can for your local restaurants, is truly a gift. And it's really, really fascinating to see how other local restaurants in San Diego are striving and doing their part to make sure that our local fisheries keep on growing, keep being sustainable, healthy, and really keep producing for our community so that the money stays in our local waters, in our local restaurants, in our local community. The guests notice the quality, the guests notice the consistency, and the experience is far better than anything I've ever encountered as a chef. My mission is to bring forth the best quality product I could within all the licensing that I have. So providing the variety, but the highest quality product I could possibly produce. The local restaurant scene and chefs have been the lifeboat to a lot of these local small operation fishermen, like myself, for a very long time. We are now able to sell directly to the public on Saturdays at the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market. Anybody could come down on a Saturday, meet their local fishermen, and buy directly from some of the local fishermen down here with some of these products, including spiny lobster that we have today in season. When working with the local fishermen in San Diego, it really inspires me as a cook to be creative, to take what's in season and make sure that I produce the best possible dish out of what's available today. Soon after coming into the bay, we made simple tacos. Lobster was grilled with some delicious jalapeño and cilantro butter that really reflect the cuisine that San Diego offers. It is simple, spicy, fresh, sweet, savory. The combination of flavors really render a unique experience that you truly can only find here in San Diego.