Lobsters and Warm Water Years

[Saba Slayer]

There's more to it than just warm water and cold water...I hate to get too nerdy but here's MHO...
If you look at the first graph you'll see that the Baja Fishery was stopped in 1952...that was a huge percentage of our total at the time. Notice how the catch also shot up right after World War II. More people getting into the fishery and fishing the lucrative Baja waters. Also in the 50's the legal carapace size was changed and that dramatically effected the catch.
The catch picks up again in the early 80's and much of that is due to the escape port that was required on commercial traps in 1976.
So what you're seeing since the start of the 80's is a more realistic graph of our current fishery.
As you can see it's not all about temps..."Catch Effort" has a lot to do with the catch totals.