ELLSWORTH, Maine — Some lobstermen still are waiting for their 2012 trap tags to arrive but, by now, most either have received them or have received approval from the Department of Marine Resources to fish without them, a Marine Patrol official said Friday.
The availability of trap tags became an issue in May and June as the tag manufacturer experienced an equipment breakdown and got backed up for several weeks. Lobstermen in most zones along the Maine coast are limited to a maximum of 800 traps, each of which must be tagged to identify which licensed fisherman owns the trap. Each year, DMR allows fishermen to use tags from the prior year up until June 1. The tags cost fishermen 50 cents apiece.
Because of the delay, DMR started at the end of May to grant individual approval to fishermen to set gear without their 2012 tags if they had been waiting for at least four weeks to receive them.
Maj. Alan Talbot, deputy chief of Marine Patrol, said Friday that the current glut of landed lobsters, which has kept prices unusually low, and the onset of summer have reduced the urgency many fishermen felt in June to get their gear in the water. DMR officials estimated around mid-June that several hundred fishermen might still be waiting for their tags, but Talbot said Friday that the number likely is much lower now.
Talbot estimated that approximately 300 lobstermen who have waited at least four weeks have received approval from DMR to set gear without their 2012 tags, though some since might have received them. He declined to speculate how many overall might still not have their tags.
“This late in the season, there probably aren’t that many left,” Talbot said.
Most lobstermen in Maine prepare their gear in the spring for the lobster season, which generally starts in late spring and extends well into the fall. An early molt this year prompted many fishermen to get traps in the water several weeks earlier than they usually do.
The tags are manufactured in New York by Stoffel Seals, which is owned by TydenBrooks Security Products Group, based in Congers, N.Y. Recent attempts to contact company officials about the issue have been unsuccessful.
DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said recently that the department anticipated it might take longer this year for lobstermen to get their tags, but not because of problems with the tag manufacturer. He said the size of DMR’s licensing staff decreased over the winter, so fishermen were encouraged to order their tags by April 1 in order to give the department enough time to process their orders.
“We told everybody to buy them before April,” he said.
Keliher said Stoffel has manufactured trap tags for Maine since 1996 and is in the final year of a three-year contract to produce them. Stoffel has developed a color-coded locking system on its tags that prevent anyone from being able to make counterfeit tags, the commissioner said, and the firm submitted the lowest bid for the work.
The commissioner said DMR’s contract with Stoffel requires the company to process and ship out orders within 15 days of receiving them. He added that there are financial penalties built into the contract that give the company incentives to produce and ship the tags on time.
Keliher said the state will review the tag delay when it sends out requests for new tag manufacturing contract bids later this year.
“We’re going back out to bid this fall,” he said.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
Maj. Alan Talbot, Deputy Chief, Marine Patrol is severely misinformed or simply not very bright if he thinks fishermen are not very, very upset about the unbelievably long extended wait for their trap tags. His idiotic excuse that because there is a glut of lobsters & the price is down and the onset of summer have reduced the urgency many fishermen felt in June to get their gear in the water is so crazy and off the wall that you have to wonder what is behind this type of statement…what is he covering up? Then he states, “we told everybody to buy them before April”. Apparently the size of DMR’s Licensing Staff was reduced during the winter and Maj. Talbot would like to blame the remaining staff for the unreal delay in fishermen receiving their tags. Solution: Get rid of a few Marine Patrol Officers & use the savings in payroll to hire the necessary licensing staff. However, that is no explanation of why the corporation producing these tags is not doing so in a reasonable time frame and there is no explanation of why the Dept of Marine Resources has not found a resolution to this problem since Stoffel Seals is in direct violation of the contract it signed to produce the trap tags & ship them out within 15 days of order. Someone at the Dept of Marine Resources is not doing their job and needs to be held accountable. Fishermen are very upset about this. They paid for their licenses (expensive) and their tags (expensive) and they should have received what they paid for. The fifteen days allowed in the contract is too long, let alone wait for weeks on end. With the technology we have today, I am sure the Dept of Marine Resources could contract with a company that would perform far better than Stoffel. Is somebody in the Dept. getting a kickback for contracting with this company? It isn’t reasonable to believe this situation is acceptable on any level. Worse yet, Commissioner Keliher states they will be reviewing this matter in the fall when they send out new bids because Stoffel’s contract has expired. Why hasn’t something been done before now, let alone put it off until fall??? Exactly what are the “financial penalties” that are built into the contract if Stoffel fails to perform?? When will Stoffel be paying those penalties?? The BND reporter, Bill Trotter, needs to dig a little deeper. The Dept of Marine Resources has a huge budget that sucks the taxpayers dry. They need to be audited and recommendations made for huge cuts in their budget.
well said!! another example of the govt hard at work for the fisherman! NOT!!!!
No real lobsterman would wait until April to order his tags. Just kids and part timers
You need to read the BDN article again, Keliher is the one that said “we told everyone to buy them before April” not Major Talbot. Also, someone should check their head count in licensing, as Keliher says “staff decreased over the winter”, the last time I was there they had 4 people working just like they have for years!
Hasn’t the State of Maine exported enough jobs.
Hey here is a ground breaking thought… hire these tags made in MAINE.
As a lobsterman I for one would pay the extra .03 that the Maine firm missed the last bid per tag.
Considering the fact George” Red Beard” LaPointe former decomissioner of all marine resources our great State has to offfer stated ” The cost of trap tags will never exceed the production cost” is in fact how they finally softened the fisherman to not march on the State House upon imposing the system.
Once again we followed in good faith only to create another taxing device…..
Oh well, lucky to have a job.
Before the trap tag program was implemented, and the initial contract was out to bid, a small mom and pop company in Topsham put in a bid. Stoffel Seals underbid them by less than one cent per tag. I wasn’t in favor of the trap tag program, but if we were going to have one, I would preferred to have seen the contract go to a Maine business, especially if the cost was less than a penny a tag. I believe the figure was 2/10th’s of a cent, which amounts to $1.60 more for an order of 800 tags.
On another note, if you are relying on the state issued trap tag as the sole way of identifying a recovered ghost trap, it can be a real pain to track down the owner. The only identifying nomenclature is the owner’s license number, which is useless unless you have access to a list of all license holders in your zone/abutting zone. You end up having to contact the marine patrol, or in our case, our harbor master received a list so that he can also identify them. All of my traps have an additional tag (manufactured by the company in Topsham) with my name on it, making it easy to return any lost gear. If I found a trap with one of these tags, I would return it directly to the owner. If they don’t, I just dump it off at the town landing, leaving it at the mercy of being noticed by somebody who recognizes it, the harbormaster, or worse, somebody else who just decides they want it. Personally, I think it’s a little cheap and lazy to not put one of these tags in, but not many do.
Time to stop license for 5 traps by non-fishermen.
As a full time fisherman with 800 traps, I ask you why?
My husband is a lobsterman as well. I don’t think it’s necessary ans I have seen it abused many times, ie. a father hauling 25 traps, because each of his five children have 5 traps.
I’m sure there are cases of it being abused as you say, but I can’t see penalizing the honest folks who play by the rules. There are dishonest people in all walks of life. Personally, I get more torqued by the handful of full time fishermen who haul other guys gear in the fog. They might as well just walk into a guy’s house and steal his wallet.
i thought of that when I wrote it. People steal and cheat in all kinds of ways. I guess I am just personally againt the 5 trap license. All those people catching them themselves, might have bought some from the hard working fishermen.
Not necessarily directed at you, but my husband is not one that can buy new trucks, etc. We’re just struggling along while he works his a** off.
And how about all the cruise ships that cut off people’s traps? The ships are a “big boon” to Bar Harbor businesses. Why don’t those businesses find a way to help the local fishermen in the MDI area, to replace the LOSSES caused by the cruise ships. The cruise ships themselves could even pay a fee per ship
“the firm submitted the lowest bid for the work”Sometimes you get what you pay for.