enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Lobsterman Paul Hickey of Harpswell sells some of his own catch outside the Tontine Mall in Brunswick. A bakery in the mall offers a discount to anyone who buys lobsters from him.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Sternman Sam Whitener throws back a lobster that was too small to keep while checking traps aboard Mike Floyd’s Kathleen II. If the price of lobster doesn’t rise by next spring or summer, “the first impact would be Sam would lose his job, and I’d go alone,” said Floyd, a Long Island lobsterman.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Long Island lobsterman Mike Floyd positions his boat to drop traps in Casco Bay. He says low prices barely allow him to turn a profit.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

The lobster boat Intuition heads across Casco Bay. Southern and midcoast Maine lobstermen are seeking other jobs to pay the bills; those in more isolated areas are preparing for a lean winter.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Sam Whitener reloads a trap with new bait. He shares a Portland apartment with other sternmen and takes a 5 a.m. ferry to Long Island for work.

TO SEE A SLIDE SHOW of Maine lobstermen at work, click here.

The cold November winds have Mike Floyd wondering if it's time to surrender to the stock-market plunges, bank collapses and credit freezes.

Someday soon, Floyd knows, the costs of steaming from home on Long Island and hauling his lobster traps will exceed the income he and his helper can earn selling their catch in a market scuttled by the global economic crisis.

"What it's going to come down to is how long we're going to keep doing this at this price," he said.

There are still lobsters to catch, but lobstermen up and down the Maine coast have been hauling their traps back to shore as much as two months earlier than usual. Many in southern and midcoast Maine are now fishing for other jobs to pay the bills, while those in more isolated parts of the state are simply hunkering down for a long, lean winter.

The plunge of prices since early October has lobstering families and communities closing ranks and buying time. And what worries lobstermen even more than the approaching winter, they said, is the chance that the market won't recover by next spring or summer.

"We're just holding the turn," said John Drouin, repeating an old fishermen's phrase about navigating through uncertain times.

Drouin lives in Cutler, an isolated Down East lobstering community where there are virtually no other jobs to support his wife and five children. "There is going to be a lot of guys that go out of business this winter," he said.

Drouin is still fishing, even though at $2.25 a pound it's barely worthwhile. He might catch $675 worth of lobster on a good day but spend $600 on fuel, bait and a helper, he said.

Drouin plans to get through winter by cutting back on family expenses. He's more worried that he won't be able to make up for the lost income when the lobster season starts up again in April.

"In reality, I don't see this getting any better next year," he said.

BANK COLLAPSES AFFECT BIG BUYERS

The rhythm of life in Maine lobstering communities is usually dictated by the tides, the weather and the size of catches. But that changed in early October, when the industry got caught up in the turmoil of global financial networks. Lobster prices plunged.

Along with a drop-off in lobster consumption worldwide, the collapse of banks in Iceland froze credit to large buyers in Canada, where about 70 percent of Maine lobsters typically go to be cooked and frozen.

The price paid to lobstermen dropped from $3 to $3.75 per pound to $2 to $2.75, figures not seen in more than a decade. Retail prices, meanwhile, dropped a similar percentage to as low as $3.49 per pound for soft-shell lobsters.

Statewide, the October lobster catch earned Maine fishermen less than $20 million, down more than 67 percent from a high of more than $60 million in October 2005, according to state records.

"This thing in October took everyone by surprise," said Floyd.

Floyd lives on Long Island, a town of about 200 year-round residents that lies six miles east of Portland in Casco Bay. The 53-year-old lobsterman is also chairman of the Board of Selectman, deputy fire chief and captain of the town's rescue boat.

As in Cutler, lobstering is Long Island's primary industry. An estimated 24 lobster boats are based on the island, and most families are connected to, if not dependent upon, the business.

Long Island, however, has the advantage of being in southern Maine, where the price of lobster is about 50 cents per pound higher than in Cutler, and where a struggling lobsterman is a 45-minute ferry ride from the state's largest employment center. Long Island lobstermen and their crews often find other work in winter.

Floyd and Sam Whitener, a Long Island native and sternman on the Kathleen II, have been hauling lobsters at a healthy pace this fall. But while the catch has been strong, the pair has come home some afternoons with little or no profit...