Lobstering alive and well in N.J.

NEPTUNE, N.J. - In the gray dawn, Joe Horvath, a New Jersey lobsterman for four decades, boarded his 40-foot Downeaster, the Baby Doll, which was tied to a splintered dock near the mouth of the Shark River.

As the sun broke through Friday morning's clouds, his son, Adam, 33, the sole crew member, who has the thick shoulders of a man who hauls 50,000 pounds of lobster every year, untied the lines, and Horvath eased the Baby Doll through the inlet, threading under the steel girders of the highway bridges and past the Avon-by-the-Sea bulkhead and Belmar's waterfront mansions.

Then, Horvath opened up the 450-horsepower engine for the 10-mile trek through the swells, the motor howling, the wake churning, and the coastline, except for Asbury Park's high-rises, disappearing into the morning haze.

"It's a way of life," Horvath shouted.

The summer months are the peak of the East Coast lobster-fishing season.

Lobstering represents just a sliver of New Jersey's seafood industry. There are 110 state commercial lobster-fishing licenses, but only 51 are active, with a few dozen boats operating out of the Shark River slips and piers in Point Pleasant and Sandy Hook. The nearly 700,000 pounds of lobster they land each year represents about 2 percent of the national catch.

"It's such a minute industry, half the people don't even know we catch lobsters here," Horvath said. It doesn't help that Jersey-caught lobsters are commonly called "Maine lobster."

When the catch is good and prices are high, a Jersey lobsterman can earn a six-figure salary, Horvath said.

Ten miles out, the Baby Doll drifted near an area called the Mud Hole, where lobsters are known to scuttle like flophouse roaches along the ocean floor.

"What do you want - two pounds of lunch meat?" Horvath joked, changing into his plastic deli-counter smock.

At 70, Horvath's knees grind like popping corn and his shoulders feel as tattered as old rope, he said. He has the look of an aged Marlon Brando with the body of a sea turtle and a white walrus mustache. His fists are as swollen as baby blowfish. His language is as salty as the fish entrails encrusted on his cap.