A Bob Meistrell lobster tale
Bob Meistrell and his lobster catch in pre limit days. Photo courtesy of Body Glove
One day in 2003, while working on a story about Dive N’ Surf’s 50th anniversary, I asked Bob Meistrell if he had any good lobster stories.
He said he didn’t and that didn’t much care for lobster anymore, and probably hadn’t bagged more than five in the last five years, and those were for his mother-in-law who doesn’t much like lobster, either.
He said one reason he doesn’t lobster dive is he’s become more conservation-minded in his later years. He recalled a night 30 years ago when he was invited to dinner by a new neighbor, who was an old a fish and game warden. Meistrell brought over a fresh lobster as a house warming present.
“He said to me, ‘Bob, do you ever poach?’ I said, ‘Yea. When I got out of the army, I didn’t have any money and I was probably the biggest poacher of them all. There were so many abalone and lobster then that we didn’t think it mattered.’ He said he appreciated my honesty and that he could give me a ticket, but he’d rather give me a talking to. I said I’d rather pay the fine, but he gave me a talking to anyway. He said if everyone poached out of season like I did there wouldn’t be any game left for my grandchildren.
“And boy, was he right. We never dreamed the abalone would disappear and now they’re almost extinct in Southern California. I never took illegal game again in my life.”
“But I don’t really have any good lobster stories. If you want some good stories, talk to the guys at the dive shop.
Bob and Bill Meistrell. Photo courtesy of Body Glove
“My problem with lobster,” Meistrell said, “was I could never find a pot big enough to cook the ones I caught. I used to have to cook them in the dishwasher. The first person I know to cook them that way was a friend I gave one of my smaller catches to. I left it on his porch and when he opened the bag it scarred him half to death. He called me and asked what to do with it. I told him to put it in the freezer until it settles down. They’re more tender that way. When you throw them in boiling water right away they tense up and get tough. So he put it the freezer and went to bed. But that night he called me again and said the lobster had broken out of the freezer and was hiding in his dishwasher. I told him try cycling it twice without soap and see how it tastes. That did the job. Ever since then I’ve been steaming mine the same way. It’s better than boiling them. Boiling cooks out the flavor. “
After some prodding, Meistrell let slip the location of his favorite lobster hideout.
“It’s a cavern where lobsters hang from the walls like bats. I took the owner of the DC 3 restaurant there recently. He was a little leery because it was his first dive after being certified, and it’s way out around the point on the east end of San Clemente Island. But I told him it’d be an easy dive and he’d have a good time. We dove down about 20 feet into some eel grass. Then I signaled him to follow me into a tube that drops another 80 feet. I had to look down between my legs to be sure he wasn’t lost because the tube’s too narrow to turn around in. There’s a bunch of these tubes. It looks like God poked his finger in the island before he flooded it. We took the one that leads to the cavern, and when I shined the light on the ceiling my friend couldn’t believe it. There must have been 5,000 lobsters in the cave. The only problem was, it was out of season.
“To get back, I like to take a passage I call the toilet bowl because it kind of flushes you up and down. There’re harbor seals that sit up on the ledges, and when they see you coming out they dive right at you. They come so close you can touch them if you want. A baby harbor seal grabbed onto one of my friend’s fins and rode him all the way to the boat.
Once we got on the boat, I asked him, ‘Did you see that harbor seal hitch a ride on your fin?’ And he said to me, ‘Meistrell, you tell all these stories and I don’t believe half of them.’ He wouldn’t even believe me about the baby seal until I showed him the teeth marks in his fins,’ Meistrell said.
“I do recall one pretty good lobster story,” he said, “about the time I went looking for lobster in Catalina and ended up breathing out my ears. What happened was I took Charlton Hesston, Gary Cooper and this old pro tennis player named Tony Treavor to Emerald Bay. Treavor had the biggest wrist I’ve ever seen on a man. Anyway, we were in about 60 feet of water when I found a 14.5 pound lobster. I didn’t have a game bag so I had to hold the bug between my legs because before I caught the lobster I’d found a new water bucket and a brand new tuna rod.
“Well, when I got to the surface, I’d had used all my air, and was swimming back to the boat when Trevor grabbed hold of me and said he was in trouble and threw his 32 pound weight belt over my shoulders. I didn’t want to lose the lobster, so I tried to drop the belt, but it got all tangled up in the rod and reel and took me straight back down to the bottom. I didn’t know it at the time, but when I got back to the boat and heard air blowing out my ears I realized I’d blown out both my ear drums.
“The bad part was I still had three more days of diving ahead. I’ve never had a drink of liquor in my life, but I poured gin in my ears to prevent them from becoming infected.
“But, I don’t have any really good lobster stories. Maybe my son Robbie has some stories. He’s the one who started the Dive N’ Surf Mobster Lobster contest.”