Bug Buddy

It’s never too late to think about improving your lobster hunting technique. While lobster season ends March 21, you still have time. Perhaps you’ve struggled this year, getting fewer lobsters than you’d like (can you ever get enough?) or maybe none at all. Or perhaps you’ve never tried and decided to make a go of it in the waning hours of this lobster season. Second only to learning how to properly grab a lobster, the struggle (and juggle) of measuring a lobster, while trying to hold your light, can be very difficult to master.

Lobsters are nocturnal and as such the best time to hunt them is at night when they are out in the open. The best way to night dive for lobsters is with a large, powerful light. California Fish and Game regulations state lobsters may be taken only by hand and that they must be measured for legal size before bagging.

So here’s your underwater dilemma: It’s pitch black night and you’ve successfully grabbed a lobster. With a lobster in one hand and your light in the other, how do you gauge your lobster and still be able to hold onto both your light and lobster? Its a three-handed operation! The Bug Buddy provides the answer by providing a simple, easy way to attach the gauge directly to the light, in a position that you can still see the lobster and gauge and yet interfere little with the light itself while you are searching for bugs.

This device comes in two sizes that fits nearly all larger dive lights attaching by a contracting band that tightens with a screwdriver. It installs in seconds.

The device does interfere with light from your dive light, but not significantly. The gauge on the device is a bit on the thick side, and with lobsters that are right on the border of being legal-sized can give false readings. Just keep this in mind and you’ll be fine. Do not take any doubtful bugs.

The Bug Buddy is available at many Southern California dive stores or for more information visit www.gizmosandgadgets.org on the web.

Dale Sheckler is Editor and Publisher of California Diving News, Producer of the SCUBA Show 2001 expo (June 2-3 at the Long Beach Convention Center), and co-author of the book newly released A Diver's Guide to Southern California's Best Beach Dives, 3rd Edition.

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