Bully Netting for the Florida Lobster
The majority of our customer base is dedicated to hog hunting, bowfishing, or flounder gigging. In the recent weeks we’ve found out that many of our customers are buying our Swamp Eye Flounder Gigging and Bowfishing Lights for a completely different cause: Bully Netting the Florida Lobster.
If you aren’t native to the Florida waters, you may have never heard of this sport. Similar to gigging and bowfishing, you run your boat in about 1-4 ft of water at night with bright lights to illuminate the bottom and look for savory lobster to harvest. You can also go for lobster during the day time, but you’ll have to scuba dive for them to find them hiding under rocks and coral.
General steps to Bully Net:
1 - Spot the lobster
2 - Hold the pole and bully net string, to ensure the net stays above the metal ring.
3 - Position the net directly over the lobster, just above the water.
4 - Quickly plunge the bull net straight down to the sea floor to trap the lobster.
5 - Drop the net string to release the net.
6 - Drag the bully net along the sea floor toward the handle causing the lobster to swim up into the net
7 - Scoop the lobster out of the water.
8 - Measure the lobster immediately to determine size and gently release if too small.
The Florida Lobster can be found in a wide area ranging from Pensacola down to Key West and can make for a great time on a night out with the family.
DID YOU KNOW?
1 - Lobster can live as long as 100 years
2 - Perhaps due to being closely related to grasshoppers and tarantulas, lobsters are often referred to as “the cockroaches of the sea”
3 - Lobster was one considered a poor mans food. Commonly used in Colonial times for fertilizer, farm animal feed, and fed to prisoners and servants.
4 - A female lobster can only mate just after she has molted. Once she has shed her shell, she sends out a pheromone to let males know she’s in the mood!
5 - When lobsters mate, the eggs aren’t fertilized right away. The female carries the male’s sperm and chooses when to fertilize her eggs. Depending on how cold the water is, female lobsters may carry their eggs for up to a year.
6 - Lobsters eat voraciously after molting, and will often consume their own recently emptied shells. Eating the old shell replenishes lost calcium and hastens the hardening of the new shell.
7 - Lobsters taste with their legs via chemosensory hairs that identify food.
8 - They also chew food with “teeth” located in their stomachs, which are right behind the eyes and about the size of a walnut.
9 - Lobsters are cannibals When food is scarce, they are known to dine on smaller lobsters.
10 - Lobsters don’t scream when you cook them - they don’t have lungs or vocal cords. The noise people hear is air that has been trapped in the stomach and force through the mouth after being out of water for short periods of time.
11 - Lobster blood is clear. When cooked it turns into a whitish gel.
12 - Lobsters can regenerate their claws, legs and antennae.
13 - Lobster meat is a great source of protein, providing 28 grams of protein per cup. If you skip the butter, they aren’t fattening. 3.5 ounces have just 96 calories and 2 grams of fat.
14 - The creamy green stuff inside a lobster is called the tomalley - a digestive gland thats the intestine, liver, and pancreas. Its appearance may be off-putting but many people enjoy eating it and consider it delicious.