There is a bit of specialized language involved in lobstering. Here is a sample:
Pots: another word for trap.
Kitchen: the section of the trap where the baitbag hangs, where the lobster is drawn in from outside to eat.
Parlor: the section of the trap that the lobster climbs into from the kitchen after he or she has eaten.
Bait Bag: a little bag that is suspended in the kitchen full of lobster food to lure the lobster into the trap.
Ghost Panel: an escape panel secured with biodegradable ferrous hog rings designed to release lobsters and other animals from lost traps.
Hog Rings: little metal rings that you clamp like staples on the the trap. Some, not stainless but ferrous, are designed to dissolve in the event that a trap is lost at sea with sea animals trapped inside.
Neutrally Buoyant Line: line that doesn’t float on the surface or sink to the bottom, also called hoverline.
Weak Link: an attachment connecting the buoy to the line on the trap which must have a breaking strength less than 600 pounds so whales and other creatures that might get caught up in the line can easily break free. There are a couple different legal options for this, the most common looks like a single chain link made of plastic.
Swimmeretes: little flap appendages under the tail, the first pair of which can help determine the sex of a lobster. If they are soft it’s a female; if they are hard it’s a male.
Chitin: the material that the exoskeleton of a lobster is made out of.
Rostrum: two sharp bony projections on either side of the lobster’s head.
Crusher Claw: the big claw.
Pincher Claw: the small claw.
Flippers: the five flippers at the end of the tail.
Eyes/Eye Stalks: the lobster has two compound eyes at the ends of short flexible stalks coming out of its rostrum. Being stalked provides a broader field of view and increased binocular spread. Lobster eyes are adapted to low-light environments, but probably only see in monochrome, like shadows and changes in light intensity. Vision is thought to be weaker than chemical and tactile senses. Present in the eye stalks are hormones involved in the processes of molting, regeneration, and metabolism.
Carapace: The large main body shell of the lobster, what must measure between 3.25 and 5 inches for a lobster to be legal size. Also called the cephalothorax.
Berried: word used to describe a female of the species when she is egg-bearing. She’ll carry a lot of them under her tail for 10 or so months, and they look like berries (see pic below of a berried female). Apparently one in one thousand of those that hatch make it to adulthood.
Egger: a berried female.
V-Notch: in the state of Maine, a v-notch must be clipped into the flipper immediately to the right of center of a egg-bearing female lobster before she’s thrown back in. It’s a 1/4 inch portion of her flipper that you remove with a sharp knife to mark her as a reproducing female. The notch will stay through a few seasons of molting (see pic to right of v-notch).
Gonad: funny sounding word that denotes some part of lobster anatomy.
Tomalley: the digestive gland of a lobster. Women who are preggers are advised not to eat this part, but I assume no one should eat it really, because it absorbs heavy metals like mercury and cadmium from the sea floor.
Cull: a lobster that is missing one or both claws.
Sabiki Rig: a rig design used espcially for catching bait fish. It has several branches stemming off of the central line, each with a hook and shiny attractant. The end of the line is weighted with a diamond jig lure.
Hen: female lobster.
Cock: male lobster.
Short: a lobster that is too small to legally harvest.
Bait Iron: A large needle-like tool used to string fish up as bait inside a lobster trap, also called bait needle.
the haulress
the long hauler
