Bully Netting in Key West

Bully Net
With Aluminium Pole

I will explain to the best of my ability for those who do not know what this means because many will not know if I don’t explain. It is a type of dip net used to catch Florida Lobster. Sometimes called spiny lobster and some call them longusta or just gusters.

Ours was homemade with a wooden pole, used also just to pole the boat around. Picture it as being L shaped.When you saw a lobster you turned the pole up. Lines attached and you held the line and the bag upside down.

Place the bail over the lobster, and drop the bag while still holding the line. The lobster will always swim upwards and backwards. Then lift the pole up and the lobster is bagged. Then release the lobster into the live well.

Chuck and I loved to go bully netting on every slick calm night that we possibly could. Our two children were quite young and we made a comfortable bed for them under the bow cap. They slept while we poled around and caught lobsters. If there was the slightest ripple on the water you could not see them well enough to catch them.

Florida Lobster
Also Called Bugs

We kept plenty in our freezer, at that time there was no limit; except on the size of the lobster and we had a gadget to measure when we caught one. 

We didn't get a lot of slick calm nights in Key West so we had to take advantage of the ones that we did get. 

However over the years our children Stormy and Bo did a lot of sleeping under the bow cap of our boat.

We lived in Sigsbee Park Naval Housing with a canal behind our house that led out to open water. The nearest flats were the flats around Fleming Key and around the old Sea Drone that the Sea Planes had used as a landing strip when there had been an active Sea Plane Base here during WWII.

I always worked the spot light and Chuck worked the bully net. When I spotted a lobster; their eyes reflect red when the light shines in them, I could work it around in almost any direction I wanted it to go in. 

They did not like the light, they would try to ease around and crawl backwards to get out and stay out of it, so they were easy to steer as long as you didn't make a sudden move or noise.

One night when we were out we spotted one that didn't want to do what I tried to get it to do. It kept backing away, but we kept working it. Finally it decided to bolt and try to get away from the light.

It bolted right up onto the beach, and Chuck pushed the boat on up to the beach and stepped out and picked it up it was a really big one, the tail weighed about a pound. The tail is the only part we ate, these kind have no claws, they have antennae. We had lobster quite often and it was a great supplement to our food supply.

I prepared it in all kinds of ways. Sometimes I split the back hull and removed the meat, cut it in strips. Then dipped it in a tempura batter and fried it. Often I made a salad with it, this was Chuck’s favorite way to eat it, other times I just broiled it. Once in awhile I made a lobster thermidor.

All the years we lived there this was legal, and we could go almost anywhere. Today there are restrictions and some areas are closed completely. Like many things of the sea, the industry was greatly over-fished and things had to change. The most we ever caught in one night was five dozen. Most nights it would just be two or three dozen.

If we didn't find them crawling on the flats near the Sea Drone and Fleming Key we would venture out to other flats around what we called Christmas Tree Island, the island was built from spoil when the Navy dredged the channels deeper for the bigger boats. It's official name is Wisteria Island.

Wisteria or Christmas Tree Island

It was just a vacant island in those days; except for quite a few old wrecked boats and a lot of Australian Pine Trees, which is how it came to be called Christmas Tree Island.

Heart Shaped Sea Bean

These Came From the Rain-forest in
the Amazon

There was also another little Island near it, I don't remember its name, both were two of my favorite places to collect shells and sea beans.

These sea beans came from various plants in the rain forest in the amazon and various other places and floated in on the tides and wash ashore on our beaches all around Florida. I had quite a collection of sea beans and shells.

So if there isn't a lot of lobster crawling you just enjoy the wonderful display of nature.You see a lot of sea creatures at night that you don’t see during the day.  

Backside of Christmas Tree Island

Horse Conch
Pronounced Conk

One of the nights when we had gone out to Christmas Tree Island we found one of the largest horse conch shells either of us had ever seen on the backside of the Island. 

Chuck was able to dip it up with the net and I kept that shell for many years.

We would see all kinds of tropical fish as well as very large fish such as Red Snapper, Yellowtail Snapper and numerous others. The water is so clear you can easily see the bottom in 20 to 30 feet of water.