Fisheries committee  Well, when I got into it prices were running at around $6 a pound, almost double what they are now. My biggest worry was that I was new to it--did I know enough to catch enough to make the payments? In the first couple of years it was good. Last year I caught more lobsters, and I figured, well, this looks good.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Yes, in the first couple of years we caught around 8,000 a season. With the prices up, we did all right. But as you said, last spring and this fall when the price was down, if I hadn't caught those extra lobsters.... I don't know if I fished any harder. I might have fished a little bit differently, and thankfully the stock was a little better.

Fisheries committee  What we're doing right now seems to be working, because in the last year or so my catch has gone up. There is a new fellow who has been doing it for just a couple of years. He's just young, he's only 22, and he's outfishing me. He's fishing harder than I am. He has a little bigger boat and he goes out in a little dirtier weather, but for him to just jump in and do that well makes me believe the stocks are healthy.

Fisheries committee  I'd been around boats for years and I loved it. I worked in B.C. for a year, in the forest industry, and came back home and decided I might as well do what I love, and that's fishing. I went back to work with an older gentleman as a deckhand. He was in his eighties, so I did most of the work, and I learned a lot.

Fisheries committee  I'm relatively new to the fishery. I've owned my own boat and licence for only four years. I'd board a boat every chance I could since I was probably 15, and I worked as a deckhand for eight or nine years. In the last few years, the last year especially, we've seen the price drop dramatically, but if you go to the grocery store, the price remains the same.