Lobster Side Dish: Bricks, or Oysters?

Bricks are not delicious. Oysters are delicious. Both are heavy.

Heaviness is what you need for a lobster trap to sink to the bottom of the sea and stay there. When I worked as a lobsterboat crewman in Maine, numerous winter days were spent outfitting new traps with heavy bricks.

But the lobstermen pictured above, who are part of a pilot study in Massachusetts, are trying something different. Instead of heavy bricks, they are outfitting this lobster trap with baskets to hold heavy oysters, which will grow bigger while their weight also helps keep the trap sitting on the bottom. Later, the lobstermen can harvest and sell the big oysters they’ve grown, along with the lobsters they’ve been catching.

This seems a clever melding of wild harvesting and aquaculture, using a single piece of equipment. Will it catch on? It partly depends how well the lobsters and the oysters get along in the trap; initial reports are that the lobsters are a little less inclined to walk inside.

But oysters do sound like an easier sell for a tasty side dish than bricks. Unless stone soup makes a comeback.

Read the report. Photo: Joseph K. Buttner