‘Chiefy’ knows best when it comes to catching lobster during recent miniseason
The lobster miniseason was one of the best in recent memory, and the regular lobster season started off just as good.
“I think it’s going to be a good season, based on the numbers we’ve seen,” said Jim “Chiefy” Mathie, whose six-man crew caught its 72-lobster daily limit diving off Broward County both days of miniseason, which was July 29 and 30. The Chiefy crew also got limits Thursday when the regular season opened, and Friday.
“Everybody did well during miniseason. The guys diving off the beach, guys diving in 35-45 feet, even the third reef, guys were doing OK.”
“I saw lobsters right off the bat and throughout the whole dive,” said Chiefy crew member Ken Udell of Boca Raton on the first day. “As I continued diving, I kept finding clusters here, clusters there. They were everywhere. Each cluster was probably four to six lobsters. The last hole, just before I came up, must’ve had 10, 12 lobsters. I got the rest of my limit and left six behind.”
Miniseason is popular because it’s the first opportunity for recreational divers to catch lobsters since the regular season closed on April 1. The nearly four-month break typically has the crustaceans less wary than usual and concentrated in reefs and rockpiles, but not always. Last year’s miniseason was one of the worst Mathie could remember.
A retired Deerfield Beach fire chief and author of “Catching the BUG: The Comprehensive Guide to Catching the Spiny Lobster,” which is available at local dive stores and at www.chiefy.net, Mathie had predicted a banner 2020 miniseason in these pages a month ago based on lobster numbers at the end of last season, his scouting while spearfishing during the closed lobster season, and economic issues.
He scouted again each of the three days before miniseason, which confirmed his prediction: “I personally witnessed them clustered together in 35 feet and I knew it was going to be good.”
As it turned out, Chiefy knows best when it comes to putting divers in the right spot. But even Mathie was impressed by the results: Both days, each of his divers needed only one tank of air to catch a 12-lobster limit.
“I cannot remember ever doing a limit both days in one tank each day,” Mathie said. “That makes it special.”
When the regular season opened Thursday, six Chiefy divers caught their limit of 36 lobsters. On Friday, five divers caught 30 lobsters. All of those bugs were caught on one-tank dives.
“We’re going to the same spots [as miniseason]. They’re refilling back in,” Mathie said.
“We knew that it was going to be a good year based on last season. The end of last season, say December, January, it got good. We were catching a lot of lobster, but there were a fair amount of shorts. So we knew that the commercial guys, the impact had diminished. That was based on two things: One, COVID hit China pretty hard, and two, the tariffs on China, so they were not purchasing any Florida lobster. That was just a sign that we were going to have a good year.”
The only negative to Mathie’s year so far was a miniseason incident involving another dive boat.
Jeff DeForrest, whose entertaining sports talk radio “The Defo Show” airs 6-10 a.m. on WINZ 940 AM, described lobster miniseason as an “underwater Mardi Gras” while interviewing Mathie as the Chiefy crew was returning to the dock the first day. Like the New Orleans celebration, some people get carried away during the annual two-day event.
Mathie told DeForrest how a boat was waiting outside Boca Inlet at 6 a.m. and followed his 29-foot SeaVee to his dive spot. After Mathie dropped his first two divers in the water, the other boat put two of its divers in the water 50 feet away. Both of those divers later surfaced with catch bags filled with bugs.
“I’ve never had this happen before,” Mathie told DeForrest. “I don’t think they had a plan, other than following somebody who looked like they knew what they were doing. So I guess that’s a testament to us that we look like we know what we’re doing.
“It was really, really rude of them to do that. We have people cut in front of us and jump in, that’s no big deal. This guy, that was his plan, to wait for someone to come out of the inlet and follow him and go to their spot and dive along with them.”
“It’s an underwater Palmetto Expressway down there is what you’re saying,” Defo said. “South Florida rudeness. How despicable of these people.”
Fortunately, because Chiefy knows best, even that rudeness could not limit his crew’s miniseason catch.
