Happy Lobster Season, Y'all

[chris138]

Nice write up and beautiful pictures. Truthfully, I'm not sure that many will relate with your anthropomorphization of the invertebrates. Seems that the further away from a cute cuddly bunny or kitten you get, even animal lovers have little empathy for the plight of the lowly arthropods. I will say it is an encouraging sign for our species of strange warmongering apes that more and more people won't kill bugs, and rather lean towards "relocating them" in the household. I also think it is a evolutionary progression, as we separate ourselves further and further from the true brutality of nature. Shit it was only a few thousand years ago that humans had little ethical dilemma with murdering and raping each other, to say nothing of the other creatures on the planet.

However, I do agree that there is a part of me inside that just feels terrible about boiling an animal alive. It's kind of a cop out when people lean on the "god put the animals here for us to eat" excuse. BUT, I also think it is a valuable exercise in true humanity (humanity being admittedly distinct from humanely) to perform the deed yourself rather than purchasing industrially harvested animal flesh. I make the conscious decision to end this animals life and consume it's tender goodness, and see the grim reality of a horrible death which I myself might one day face. The early natives of North America likely felt similarly, and that act connects us with our past. Western civilization and our factory farms and slaughterhouses intentionally separate us from that experience and I think that kind robs us of that and blinds us from accepting our own inevitable demise.

Anyway, take shrooms, listen to the Joe Rogan podcast, and kill away my fellow apes. The fact that you ponder the suffering of marine cockroaches gives me a little hope for humanity. Cheers!

[TCS]

That was a great bit of writing! Thanks. Amazing pics too.
I’ve been tempted to try diving for lobster but seem to wimp out every year. How did you get started? Diving with a buddy?

[ProfessorLongArms]

Originally Posted by TCS

That was a great bit of writing! Thanks. Amazing pics too.
I’ve been tempted to try diving for lobster but seem to wimp out every year. How did you get started? Diving with a buddy?

Thanks!!!
Lobster diving can be one of the easier entry points to free-diving/spearing to be sure. Half the time you can find them in 6 feet of water in the eelgrass.

I'd been kayak fishing for about a year, and had also decided to take up Lap Swimming since I was starting to get a little pudge from diet and just not being 20 something anymore....

I'd recommend going about it the same way I did, and if you find you're serious about it, taking a free-diving course. I can't tell you how many people I know who've been diving for a year plus who took a course and said "I can't believe how dangerous I was being"
Some people argue they're an expensive way to get into the sport and not entirely necessary, but compared to the cost of a decent wetsuit, mask, fins, lobster bag, dive light, speargun, etc. etc. etc. it's pretty reasonable as an insurance policy.

There are a number of spearo forums on Facebook for CA and SoCal, and a lot of people just go to a shop, buy the gear, and jump in the ocean.
Similar to Kayak Fishing, it can be a lot more fun and a lot safer if you have buddies. There's a conventional wisdom that you *never* dive alone because most people who die do so from an unrescued blackout.

Feel free to shoot me a DM if you'd like to chat about it more. I tend to almost exclusively dive with certified freedivers for my own safety, but I'm always happy to chat and answer any questions you might have.

[Oolie]

https://shizuokagourmet.com/category/ise-ebi/


Don't forget to eat the "wata" or in english "tomalley".


Some of the best stuff in there.

[Saba Slayer]

Think twice about eating this part of the lobster as it is the liver and pancreas that you are devouring...these are the filters that take out all the terrible stuff...

[chris138]

Originally Posted by Oolie

https://shizuokagourmet.com/category/ise-ebi/


Don't forget to eat the "wata" or in english "tomalley".


Some of the best stuff in there.

I got a comment on my yotube about the tomalley, and I thought he was talking about "Tamales" hahaha I was like dam that sounds delicious!

[bracks]

Such a wonderful read. Thanks for sharing. I too experience the mixed emotions when dispatching a fish. Gratitude is what mostly carries the day, paired with a quick reminder of my commitment to respect the fish by taking care of the catch. That moment is kind of sort of the main way I get that wonderful reminder of my place on this earth and how we're all connected.

Plus ~ yea, factory farming is typically awful for animals and the ecosystems they exist in. The more I can catch/eat wild animals from wild places, the better. I know there's the question of 'how to feed the world' with wild animals which I haven't answered for myself but I'm also a proponent of local food and local supply chains which I think is more philosophically in balance with how nature works.

Thanks for the idea of freezing the lobster before dispatching.

[f'nsabiki]

I love your posts. I look at mine, and there's a doofus holding a bloody fish with a couple sentences. You elevate yours to a whole new cerebral level--coupled with the near work of art photography ( I don't know if you will ever top the lizard eating flies)

[JohnMckroidJr]

Beautiful photos and a nice Read, love the choice of words and vocabulary you bring to your posts.

[ProfessorLongArms]

Originally Posted by bracks

Such a wonderful read. Thanks for sharing. I too experience the mixed emotions when dispatching a fish. Gratitude is what mostly carries the day, paired with a quick reminder of my commitment to respect the fish by taking care of the catch. That moment is kind of sort of the main way I get that wonderful reminder of my place on this earth and how we're all connected.

Plus ~ yea, factory farming is typically awful for animals and the ecosystems they exist in. The more I can catch/eat wild animals from wild places, the better. I know there's the question of 'how to feed the world' with wild animals which I haven't answered for myself but I'm also a proponent of local food and local supply chains which I think is more philosophically in balance with how nature works.

Thanks for the idea of freezing the lobster before dispatching.

Thanks for the kind words and the encouragement

You actually just reminded me of this interview which is really fascinating and a cool look at diversifying food systems to more local options rather than the commercially optimized ones. https://www.noobspearo.com/valentine...-spearfishing/

[ProfessorLongArms]

Originally Posted by chris138

Nice write up and beautiful pictures. Truthfully, I'm not sure that many will relate with your anthropomorphization of the invertebrates. Seems that the further away from a cute cuddly bunny or kitten you get, even animal lovers have little empathy for the plight of the lowly arthropods. I will say it is an encouraging sign for our species of strange warmongering apes that more and more people won't kill bugs, and rather lean towards "relocating them" in the household. I also think it is a evolutionary progression, as we separate ourselves further and further from the true brutality of nature. Shit it was only a few thousand years ago that humans had little ethical dilemma with murdering and raping each other, to say nothing of the other creatures on the planet.

However, I do agree that there is a part of me inside that just feels terrible about boiling an animal alive. It's kind of a cop out when people lean on the "god put the animals here for us to eat" excuse. BUT, I also think it is a valuable exercise in true humanity (humanity being admittedly distinct from humanely) to perform the deed yourself rather than purchasing industrially harvested animal flesh. I make the conscious decision to end this animals life and consume it's tender goodness, and see the grim reality of a horrible death which I myself might one day face. The early natives of North America likely felt similarly, and that act connects us with our past. Western civilization and our factory farms and slaughterhouses intentionally separate us from that experience and I think that kind robs us of that and blinds us from accepting our own inevitable demise.

Anyway, take shrooms, listen to the Joe Rogan podcast, and kill away my fellow apes. The fact that you ponder the suffering of marine cockroaches gives me a little hope for humanity. Cheers!

First of all, thank you
I've pretty strong feels toward your videos and your chops as a fisherman.

I'd say anyone who has read 5 words of my writing or watched 5 seconds of my videos knows the one thing I like to do is ponder and consider

I couldn't agree more that as a *world* we've done a crazy good job of abstracting our food from its source.... A hamburger from a round from a cow's ass from an actual living cow.... My grandfather raised beef and chicken, and I've hunted squirrel (true Alabama roots are in boiled squirrel if they're anywhere ), deer, dove, duck, geese and turkey since I was about 8.
Point is I know from getting my hands dirty.

Since we're pondering, I look at fishing in general as buying an experience more than anything. It'd be a lot more economic in terms of time/energy/money to just go buy some fish, but the lot of us decided that journey would *be* the destination, and right the hell on. I'm impressed by anyone who gets their money's worth on gear purchases pound for pound in fish.... I probably don't even break even on lures

What vexes me, and an idea I cannot get my head around, is when someone gets into fishing or spearfishing without much interest in the food of it. Someone recently mentioned a problem with spearos who will shoot a fish and toss it... My jaw was on the floor, as I literally hadn't fathomed the idea.

I don't go so far as to convince myself I'm out here homesteading to feed my family when in fact I could just buy fish and take up knitting, but I do connect most with the romanticized notion of the story of my food.... Connecting both with the thrill and the challenge of the hunt and the heritage of the food culture and recipes older than the country I live in.... Understanding how hard it is to beat hand-made pasta with 2 ingredients alongside a fish you caught that day and greens from your garden.
I also have no judgment toward anyone who wants to pull the fillets, toss the carcass, and batter them in corn flakes every damn meal.

I think, as you say, we're evolved as warmongering apes (and on my worst days I would argue we're not much better than we were back then, just a lot more comfortable lately) but we're also really good at assigning meaning to whatever we see before us. For me, the meaning I assign is pretty cut and dry.

I remember, when I was in high school the first time I killed an animal with a sick feeling in my stomach. I'd been hunting for going on a decade, and always at least field dressed my kill. My dad's best friend was a raging alcoholic and he took me to south Alabama to hunt Geese while my dad was out of town. He drove two dry counties over after we'd hunted that afternoon to pick up a case of beer before heading back to where we were staying....
I walked out the next morning and realized despite him telling me he would that he'd not fully dispatched the geese we shot or gutted them.
They were right where we'd left them in the back of the truck, wide eyed and still barely alive under a tarp. Not only was it needless suffering, but it was a waste of meat.

I don't like that feeling, much as you could imagine, and I find myself with a pretty solid sense of urgency about dispatching my kill.

I guess that's (on-brand for me) my long-winded way of saying that it's hard to know where the science lands on whether Lobsters *feel* pain or what the implications of their aversion are, and even still whether that matters since we're making them into meat anyway. Some countries in EU make their restaurants buy expensive electrocution apparatus on the notion that they feel pain... I'm not sure I fall all the way over on that end of the spectrum.

I *will* say that knowing a lobster isn't *conscious* while I'm dispatching them, I tend to not have that sick feeling.... and since I'm buying my own experience, I'll take that one with a side of fries... or mushrooms I guess

...And absolutely no judgment toward anyone who feels otherwise.