The 1688 Professional Lobster Fishermen Association (PLFA) is calling on fishermen and their supporters to turn out for meetings this week to discuss the low lobster prices fishermen are receiving for their catches.
The reports coming out of the industry in the first week of the season is that catches have been high – record catches in some areas.
As for those bringing the lobsters ashore, many fishermen are being paid $3 a pound for their catches.
The 1688 PLFA is calling on fishermen not to go fishing or to hold back their catches until the price goes up.
Two meetings will be held this week to discuss the situation. One will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 5 at 11 a.m. at the wharf on Yarmouth’s waterfront (the wharf with the ice plant). The other meeting will be held later in the day on Wednesday in the Barrington Arena parking lot at 2:30 p.m.
In the weeks leading up to the start of the season the 1688 PLFA has urged fishermen not to set their pots until they had a confirmed price for the season – a price considered fair by the industry.
An effort also took place in the days before the opening of the season to try and organize crewmembers to strike but organizers of the effort could not draw the numbers needed.
In September the LFA 34 Management Board had put forth two proposals for licence holders to vote on, one was a one-week delay to the start of the season and the other was a trap reduction that would have seen fishermen fishing 50 less traps each at the start of the season. The majority of licence holders voted against both of these proposals.
