Southern California is the home of the Spiny Lobster. These delicious creatures live in the rocks near shore and around the off shore islands of Southern California. Unlike the Maine lobster the spiny lobster has no large front pincher claws. Only the tail of the spiny lobster is eaten.
My husband and I have spent many years scuba diving for these crustaceans. They are difficult to hunt because the law allows only the use of your hands to catch them. Their tail is very strong and a quick snap of it will send them shooting backwards at break neck speed. Try to visualize catching a greased pig underwater. Many of our lobster encounters resulted in our grasping wildly at empty water as the "bug" zigged and zagged backwards out of our reach.
One day while visiting the fishing website,
fullspeedfishing.com I saw a post from a fisherman in southern California. He was talking about "hooping" for lobster and he posted photos of his catch. My husband and I agreed we would love to give this a try. I emailed the fellow fisherman and asked if he would be willing to show us how to “hoop” for lobster.
The fisherman's name was Greg Olsen and he agreed to show us how it was done. Our son attends Westmont College in Santa Barbara and we were going south to visit him during the Martin Luther King break at school. Greg had time to spend with us on Monday. We arraigned to meet at the harbor at 3 pm and go out on Greg's boat the "Andale". Lobsters are nocturnal so hooping for them is done after dark. It is important to get your hoop nets 
set while it is still light to save your spot as there were many other boats trying to hoop in the same area.
Hoop nets are round nets that have a three point bridle attached to it. A rope with a float on the end is attached to the bridle. Since it will be dark soon, Greg attaches a clear plastic jug to each float with a flashing light inside. This will allow us and others to easily see our hoops in the dark. After setting our traps we sat in the boat and visited, waiting for dusk.
When dusk came we moved in to bait the traps. Greg had stuffed mesh bags full of chopped bait fish. We pulled up each of our hoops and attached a bag of bait in the bottom middle of the hoop, then lowered the hoop back down. When the hoop rests on the ocean floor it lays flat open.
Now we waited for full darkness.
After dark we began to pull up and check each hoop. It is important to try and pull the hoop straight up and pull it up fast. If the hoop is pulled up at an angle or if it is pulled up too slow, the lobster will swim out and escape. Once the hoop is raised up it is quickly put into the boat.
Our first trap had one lobster and a couple rock crabs. We measured the lobster to make sure it was legal, and released the rock crab. 
Of the ten hoops half produced a good catch of lobster. Greg decided to move three of the hoops closer to the ones catching more lobster.
For the next couple hours we pulled up hoops checked the lobsters and lowered the hoops back down. The limit is seven lobsters per fisherman. Within two hours we all had our limit. The largest lobster we caught was approximately six pounds. We kept this large lobster because it was a male. If it had been a female we would have released her because a female that size will produce a large number of eggs. Releasing large females is a voluntary act and not required, however it will benefit us all to try and keep our fisheries healthy.
What a fun and beautiful evening. My mouth watered thinking of fresh lobster and butter; I couldn’t wait to try “hooping” again. The greatest outcome of the whole experience was making a new friend. Greg went out of his way to help us learn this new way of fishing. His kindness will always remain with us and we hope that someday he will visit and let us take him fishing on the Monterey Bay.
