Monster SD Bay Lobster - 11-25-2011

[grey zone]

The swimmerettes on males do not touch or overlap. Unless I'm being deceived by the picture the swimmerettes on that lobster all overlap.

[Limits]

Nice catch and kudos on donating it to Scripps...

Definitely a female.

[KeptMan]

Thanks to all of you who replied on the sexing question. We are so privileged to be able collect these so easily and I will certainly be more careful on the take. This is such a cool fishery but I think I'd endorse having a slot limit on these things.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by grey zone

The lobster he is holding is female...... The swimmerettes on males do not touch or overlap..

Sometimes the internet just blows me away. Where do people come up with this Stuff!

Though the smaller bug is female, the big lobster is obviously a male!!

The swimmerets would be at least a third larger on a female, it has male sex organs, but more importantly for those who want something obvious, the last set of legs closest to the tail would have little claws on them if it was a female.

It's obvious from his pic.



Look a the rear legs on both bugs and note the difference.

Female lobsters have these claws so they can move eggs around on their tail. I would think anyone whose seen more then a handful of lobsters would know that difference it's just so obvious. Males do not have the little claws, they have no use for them.

The big lobster has single points on it's last set of legs at the tail. On the inside of those legs there are two gelatinous fleshy nobs that are it's male sex organs. It's tail is small in relation to it's carapace mass, which is not the case with females. Females need bigger tails to carry more eggs. Add to that...that almost every lobster caught that size off California would be male just do to simple biology. Big Bull lobster over eight pounds are almost always males. That's why they call them bulls not cows.

So basically anyone who's handled any lobster of any size would know right away it's male.

Here's a female with eggs..




You might want to notice how the swimmerets are not only bigger but double layered and kind of pointed. The legs closest to the tail are not pointed, because the have a little claw on them. Notice how far apart those legs are where they connect to it's body. How they make an upside down V were it connects to the tail. Now look again at his pic.

His bugs legs are pointed and the connection at the body is longer so the insides of the legs almost touch. No V shape, but instead two knobs which just happen to be male sex organs.

That lobster is definitely male!!!

Jim

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by grey zone

The swimmerettes on males do not touch or overlap. Unless I'm being deceived by the picture the swimmerettes on that lobster all overlap.

I did some checking going through some of my old pics, and it kind of confirmed what I already thought. The swimmerets on male bugs seem to vary in size quite a bit in ratio to the the size of the tail, and there seems to be a correlation to the size of the bug with larger bugs having proportionally smaller swimmerets.

Though they are not ever as big as those on females in some cases the swimmerets on male bugs overlap in some cases they do not.

If I had to guess there is a point where they quit increasing in size as the male bug molts and grows so they end up looking smaller and smaller in really large bugs.

Maybe what's throwing you is the size of his bug. Looks like he's holding it out quite a bit.

On really huge male bugs the swimmerets are usually much smaller in relation to the size of the tail, so you are sort of right even though you're wrong about the sex

Really huge bugs have changes in features you can recognize no matter how someone holds it.

Here's a good size bug I caught, held up by my friend Hugh.




As you can see on that bug the swimmerettes look tiny, but also look at the ratio of it's carapace length to width, and how thick the legs are. Hugh's a big guy.Those legs on that bug where at places over an inch in diameter.

Once bugs get big around nine pounds they kind of start to fill out, or get "shoulders"

If I had to guess by just looking at it's features I'd say KM's bug is well under 8.5 pounds, maybe even around 5 or 6, where the bug Hugh is holding is well over ten pounds.

At any rate they are both still males.

Here's a crappy image for telling spiny lobster sex..



Not the best picture, but you might want to notice the claws on the females legs. Also as you can see they've drawn swimmerets that though smaller then the females, they can still overlap on the male bug.

I'd say judging Lobster sex by the size of a lobsters swimmerets is lot like trying to determine a persons sex by the length of their legs. Sure women proportionally have longer legs but it's not the legs but what's between them that determines sex.

Jim

[jorluivil]

I think I'm going to have to start purchasing the 80pack box of microwave popcorn.

[GHOSTHUNTR]

Thanks Jim, I didn't want to get into too much of a pissing match here on the net, although I knew I was right. Thanks for the expanded clarification.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by GHOSTHUNTR

Thanks Jim, I didn't want to get into too much of a pissing match here on the net, although I knew I was right. Thanks for the expanded clarification.

No Problem, glad to help out.

The problem with the web is people get these strange ideas that have nothing to do with reality, and then if they repeat them often enough others start to actually believe them. It becomes like a web based mythology. My problem is when I see things like that I feel compelled to step and and say no what your saying is just not true, even if what they are saying has some kind of sentimental or popular appeal.

I mean I get it in this case. KM caught a decent bug that's was honestly probably about five or six pounds. To make it look big he held it way out from his body. Someone else came along looked at the pic and thinking it was really big maybe ten pounds said that can't be a male because it's swimmerets overlap.

It's just not the case.

The deal is the bug is not that big, and because it's still very much alive it's holding it's swimmerets in as far as they can go trying to protect the underside of it's tail.

So though the swimmerets closest to it's carapace do not overlap like they would with a female the ones closest to the end of the tail are partially overlapping.

If it was female the tail itself would be much larger, and the swimmeretes would be huge completely covering the tail even the ones nearest the carapace.

So OK we have a honest difference of opinion, probably based on something someone read that they misunderstood. At any rate all the other features of that bug point to the fact it's male. I hate to point it out but it's not only male but it's a well hung male with huge gentalia for it's size. Let's face it boy lobsters have things females do not have and that bug's got a pair of big ones.

So what does this matter? I mean who really cares?

Well other people then just fisherman watch these sites.

Say some enviro nut sees this post, seizes on it, and then goes to his local enviro whacko website and says: "Look the A-hole fisherman are killing ten pound female lobsters and destroying the lobster population." That does us all a disservice.

They love this kind of shit, true or not because it gives them a chance to make us look bad, and trust me there will be no-one on those enviro sites to come back and say: "No no no that's a male lobster!

Personally I do not keep big female lobsters, and I do it for a good reason.

Big female lobsters over 3.5 pounds can carry more eggs on their tails and better defend them from predators then smaller ones. Since it's their sole responsibility to protect their eggs and big females can do it better then small ones it makes perfect sense to release big female lobsters.

There is no law about it, I do it because I want the most bang for the buck when it comes to our lobsters and their reproduction, because honestly: I want as many lobsters out there as possible so I can catch them.

When it comes to size and reproductive value, it's different for males. Any male can fertilize any female lobster, and they do not care for the eggs or young.

Big Bull males may be older and at the top of their game but any male lobster can do the deed and insure more generations of lobsters.

Add to that that big male lobsters are territorial and cannibalistic. That they literally hunt and kill other lobsters and even will feed on smaller females with eggs and you suddenly realize not only that killing big bull male lobsters and making way for more smaller lobsters may not be such a bad idea, but also it in no way effects the resource and population numbers in the same manner as killing large females.

"Save the big breeder" argument only makes sense for female lobsters not males. So when your talking about taking home big bugs it's very important to know which ones are males and which ones are females. Release big females, and keep big males if you want to. That's my take after years of reading up on these things.

One more time KM's bug is a male not a female. Congrats on that catch!! I remember when I got my first bug that size and it was very exciting. Personally I would of eaten the thing but hey it's your bug, you caught it, its your right to do with it as you see fit.

To those who still want to say it's female. Do some reading on lobsters and their anatomy and I guarantee that when you look closely at his pics you will eventually realize that is in fact a male bug.

It's a plain as the nose on your face.

Jim

[bubblehide]

Originally Posted by Jim Day

...

Add to that that big male lobsters are territorial and cannibalistic. That they literally hunt and kill other lobsters and even will feed on smaller females with eggs and you suddenly realize not only that killing big bull male lobsters and making way for more smaller lobsters may not be such a bad idea, but also it in no way effects the resource and population numbers in the same manner as killing large females.

...Jim

Back in the day, I was fortunate enoug to have the opportunity to dive Alpha area, off on San Nic. The area was full of big big lobster. And much more often than not, they were big bulls, we simply didn't see small lobster in that area; That simply attests to their territoriality.

[The Kid]

Congrats that is a nice roach! I don't know about the slots though. All we need is one more regulation to worry about. Now that those who fish mexico need Visas if they are within 12 miles of land, La Jolla has become the new Coronado Islands. And with the MLPA, the area to fish will become a flotilla. I am not convinced we need more regulation?