Lobstermen fish for ways to keep afloat

(WTNH) - In the 1990s millions of lobster mysteriously died off and haven't come back. Now the commercial lobstermen who were once stimulating a multi-million dollar industry along with local economies are suffering. Some fear that the Connecticut tradition is in danger of truly disappearing.

A record number of pounds of lobsters were caught in waters of the Long Island Sound in 1998. Ten years later it hit a record low.

And that's not the only record low. Just over 200 lobster licenses were issued this year, which is down from 700 in 1980. And it's estimated that there are only five full-time commercial lobstermen in state.

State officials say you can't make a living doing this anymore. And for the proud lobsterman it's a forecast they have come to expect, but one they just can't accept.

Gus Bertolf, 62, and his 35-year-old son Gus Jr., would rather land the lobster than do anything else. They are both commercial lobstermen.

"Lotta hard work for nothin'," Gus junior said.

"I tried not to love it out here. I tried to get off the boat. I tried to get out of this years ago," Bertolf senior said. I couldn't do it."

The problem is there are few lobsters to trap. So the pair is forced to catch conch. But there aren't many of them either.

"What do I hope for? I hope to catch some conch, lot of it. It's not going to happen though," Bertolf Jr. said.

The Bertolfs are living a legacy that has graced Connecticut's shorelines for generations. Every boat carried with it a fisherman who had the promise of making a healthy profit, coupled with a sense of pride and passion.

"Lobster fishing is a 300-year old tradition. It's just like apple pie, baseball. It's part of America," Bertolf Jr. said.

It's also a part of Connecticut. But in the late 1990s, when the sweet specialty of the Sound died off by the millions, things changed. Research was done, but there are no solid answers. The Bertolfs have their opinions such as clam dredging, pesticides, pollution. But whatever it is, the lobsters have yet to come back.

"New England is lobsters no matter how you look at it," Bertolf Jr. said. "And for America, and Americans, to let it die out, not care about what we're doing to our water and our oceans, it's a sad day,"

Whatever it was, the waters became a graveyard, the call of the sea went silent and with it went a way of life.

Hundreds of watermen had to do something they had never done before: work on the land. Many set sail for new states and better opportunities.

Bertolf Jr. went from stacking traps to stacking stone. He owns and operates his own construction business. The lobsterman does this to keep the ' Island Girl" on the water.

"I have a love/hate thing going on right now. I love to be out here, and I hate being on land. But the land is making me the money right now and this isn't," he said.

So is a legacy lost? Is the love affair over? There were hundreds of dedicated lobstermen in 1998. Today, the estimate is as low as five.

"It really wrecks me," Bertolf Sr. said.

Connecticut's shoreline hasn't lost its appeal. The towns have retained their colonial feel, the lighthouses still guard the rocky shores. As for the lobsterman, the sea may still beckon but the question for the next generation is will anyone be there to listen?

"I'm a 300-year old tradition. I'm the last of the Mohicans. So it means something to me," Bertolf Jr. said.

Some experts believe warmer waters in the Sound also contributed to the die-off, but the Bertolfs say there were warm waters back in the 1970's and 1980's and the lobsters survived. The entire Sound has suffered, but the state says the biggest losses were West of the Connecticut River.

One hope is the V-notch program which started three years ago. This is where lobsterman voluntarily put a V-notch on the tails of the females and return them to the water where they won't be harvested, allowing them to reproduce.