With the opening of Canada’s largest lobster fishery looming on the horizon yet again, a strong shore price and decent landings was the word on lobster fishing area (LFA) 25 in Prince Edward Island, which opened Aug. 11 and closes Oct. 10.
“The weather has been windy but fishable. They are getting out every day. The price is $8.50 to $9.25 depending on who you are selling to. Landings the first week and a half were really good. I heard in the last few days it’s dropped off quite a bit,” said Charlie McGeoghegan, president of the PEI Lobster Marketing Board.
McGeoghegan said LFA 25 fishermen were catching between 1,200 to 1,500 pounds a day for the first week or so of the season. By the end of August, that had dropped to around 500 pounds a day.
“There seems to be a lot of demand right now. Lots of orders are coming in,” said McGeoghegan.
Access to bait is an issue P.E.I. fishermen are having, said McGeoghegan. “Everybody’s having to buy mackerel from the U.S. or around the world somewhere.”
P.E.I. fishermen are also dealing with too many seals and too many bass, added McGeoghegan. “Those are the two predators we’re dealing with right now.”
As for the P.E.I. spring and summer lobster fishery in LFAs 24 and 26, McGeoghegan said it went pretty well. “I heard the north side was down four per cent and the south side was up four per cent, so on par with last year overall,” he said.
The next commercial lobster fisheries to open in Atlantic Canada will be in the Bay of Fundy, where LFA 35 is scheduled to open on Oct. 14 and LFAs 36, 37 and 38 on Nov. 11. The southwestern Nova Scotia lobster fishery, LFAs 33 and 34, is scheduled to open on Nov 24.
Going into the fall, Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada, said, “in general, the lobster industry in Canada have come through the first half of the year in a better position than we feared in January. To date, due to Canadian lobster being covered by the CUSMA agreement, there are no tariffs with the United States. Uncertainty caused buyers to be cautious when procuring lobster in the winter/spring, which led to slightly lower shore prices than in 2024. Ongoing uncertainty in our largest market will continue to impact business confidence for the balance of the year.”
Irvine said exports to China for both live and frozen were down in the first half of the year 37 per cent by volume and 17 per cent by value. U.S. exports of all lobster products were flat with $336 million in value in 2025 vs $343 million in 2024, and overall Canadian lobster exports were generally flat with $1.41 billion in value in 2025 vs. $ 1.42 billion in 2024 and 40,000 metric tonnes exported year to date in 2025 vs. 42,000 in 2024.
“As usual, there are many reasons for these year-over-year changes, including less lobster available during the winter months, the economic situation in China, tariffs on Canadian lobster in China and higher raw material demand in 2025 from the processing sector. We are seeing a move to higher demand for smaller tails (under 7 oz) and cooked meat and smaller live lobster in the U.S. and Chinese markets respectively,” said Irvine.
“Going into the fall, inventories of live and frozen lobster seem to be at normal levels as the Maine catch comes on in September and October,” added Irvine.
