When Is Lobster Season in Maine? The Real Answer

The short answer

Maine's lobster fishery is open year round. Boats haul in February the same as they haul in August — there are simply far fewer of them, they are working further offshore, and the weather takes days away from them. Landings climb steeply through the summer, peak in the fall, and fall off through the winter and spring.

So the useful question is not whether lobster is in season, but which season you are eating in. There are effectively two, and the difference between them is bigger than most visitors realize.

The shed is what actually matters

A lobster grows by molting: it splits its shell along the back, backs out of it whole — legs, claws, antennae and all — and emerges with a soft new shell it then has to fill out. That process is called the shed, and Maine's lobsters do it in warm, shallow inshore water. It typically begins in late June or early July and continues in waves through the fall, timing shifting a couple of weeks either way depending on how quickly the water warmed that spring.

A lobster caught in the weeks after it molts is called a shedder, a new-shell, or a soft-shell. It is a genuinely different product from the hard-shell lobster you can buy in January:

• The shell is thin enough to crack with your hands. No cracker, no picks, no bib-and-mallet performance.
• The meat is sweeter and more tender, because the animal is still drawing water and hasn't packed the shell tight with muscle.
• There is less meat per pound. A soft-shell lobster is carrying a lot of seawater; a hard-shell of the same weight yields noticeably more.
• It does not travel. Soft-shells are fragile and stress easily, so they are eaten close to where they are landed. That is exactly why they are cheap in a coastal Maine town in August and unavailable in a Chicago supermarket in any month.

Ask for shedders when they are running. Most locals do, and most visitors don't know to.

Soft-shell versus hard-shell

Feature	Soft-shell (shedder)	Hard-shell
When	Roughly July to October	Year round; dominant November to June
Shell	Thin, cracks by hand	Hard, needs tools
Meat texture	Sweeter, more tender	Firmer, denser
Meat per pound	Less — more water in the shell	More
Price per pound	Lower	Higher
Ships well	No	Yes
Best used for	Steamed whole, eaten on site	Lobster rolls, stews, shipping home

Neither is better. They are for different jobs. If you want to sit at a picnic table by the water and take a lobster apart with your hands, you want a shedder in August. If you want to fill a lobster roll or ship a box to your parents, you want hard shell.

Month by month

• January to March. The thinnest part of the year. Boats are offshore in deep water and lose days to weather. Hard shell only, at the highest prices of the year, and most seasonal lobster pounds are shut. Year-round markets and restaurants in Portland, Bangor and the larger towns still have it.
• April and May. Supply starts to rebuild as boats move back inshore. Still hard shell, still excellent. Seasonal pounds begin opening around late May.
• June. A transition month. Hard shell through most of it, with the first shedders showing up toward the end depending on water temperature. Everything is open by the end of the month and the crowds have not fully arrived.
• July and August. Peak shedder season and peak everything else. The most lobster, the lowest prices, every pound and shack open, and the longest lines you will stand in all year.
• September and October. The best combination on the calendar. Shedders are still running, the water is at its warmest, prices stay soft, and the summer crowds thin out sharply after Labor Day. If you can pick your week, pick one here.
• November and December. Landings are still strong but the shell is hardening back up and the seasonal places close through October and November. This is when shipping season really starts.

Buying it straight from a market

Eating at a lobster pound is one route. Buying live lobster from a co-op or fish market and cooking it yourself — or having them steam it for you, which most will do — is cheaper, faster, and available in far more towns. Many markets will cook your order while you wait if you call ahead.

These are real markets from our places corpus, with their current Google ratings, spread across the coast so there is one near wherever you are staying.

Market	Town	Rating	Reviews
Harbor Fish Market	Portland	4.7	1,537
SoPo Seafood	South Portland	4.8	810
Free Range Fish & Lobster	Portland	4.6	704
Pine Tree Seafood & Produce Co.	Scarborough	4.8	459
Bayley's Lobster Pound	Scarborough	4.5	480
Wells Beach Lobster Pound	Wells	4.6	823
Off The Boat Lobsters	York	4.8	364
Three Sea's Fish and Lobster	Kennebunkport	4.9	131
Atlantic Edge Lobster	Boothbay Harbor	4.7	174
Jess's Market	Rockland	4.8	342
Graffam Bros. Seafood Market	Rockport	4.6	380
Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound	Trenton	4.4	1,688
Parsons Lobsters	Bar Harbor	4.8	387
Dorr Lobster Seafood Market	Ellsworth	4.7	540

Two practical notes on that list. Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound is the most-reviewed lobster operation on the list at 1,688 reviews and sits right on the road every Bar Harbor visitor drives, which is exactly why its 4.4 rating trails the smaller markets — volume flattens a score. And a fish market's opening hours are far more compressed than a restaurant's; several of these close mid-afternoon and some close entirely on Sundays and Mondays. Check the current hours on the market's own site before you drive.

Markets in Portland, Rockland, Ellsworth and Bangor tend to run year round. The smaller shoreside ones in Boothbay Harbor, Wells and the outer harbors are more likely to be seasonal.

The rules that keep it going

Maine's lobster fishery has been landing large volumes for a long time, and that is not luck. The management system is unusually strict and largely self-imposed by the fishermen themselves through elected zone councils.

The pieces worth knowing about:

• A minimum and a maximum legal size. Lobsters are measured across the carapace with a brass gauge. Anything under the minimum goes back so it can breed at least once; anything over the maximum goes back too, because big lobsters are the most productive breeders in the population. Very few fisheries anywhere protect the large end of the stock. The exact measurements are set by regulators and have been revised, so check the Maine Department of Marine Resources for current figures.
• Egg-bearing females go back. A female carrying eggs under her tail is returned to the water, no exceptions.
• The V-notch. When a lobsterman hauls an egg-bearing female, he cuts a small V into one of her tail flippers before releasing her. That notch marks her as a proven breeder, and any lobster carrying a V-notch is illegal to land for years afterward, whether or not she is carrying eggs at that moment. It is a voluntary practice that became law, and it is the single most distinctive thing about how Maine manages the stock.
• Trap limits and an apprenticeship. There is a cap on how many traps any one license holder can fish, and getting a commercial license means logging time as an apprentice under an existing license holder. Waiting lists in the busiest zones run years long.

All of which explains the price of a lobster more honestly than any menu ever will.

Eating it versus shipping it

If you want to send lobster home, buy hard shell and buy it from a market that ships as a matter of routine — most of the year-round operations do. Soft-shells will not survive the trip and any reputable market will tell you so rather than sell you one in August.

If you want to eat it here, the calculus is different. Go to a working pound or a co-op on the water, order shedders if it is shedder season, skip the sides, and accept that the best lobster you eat in Maine will almost certainly be served on paper at a picnic table. For where to do that, see our guides to Maine's lobster pounds and the state's best seafood restaurants.

Frequently asked questions

When is lobster season in Maine?

Maine's lobster fishery is open all twelve months — there is no statewide closed season. What changes is supply and shell condition. Landings build through the summer and peak in the fall, and the soft-shell or "shedder" season runs from roughly early July through October. For a visitor, July through October is the window when lobster is most abundant, cheapest and served everywhere.

What is the best month to eat lobster in Maine?

September. Shedders are still running, water temperatures are at their annual high, prices remain low, and the July and August crowds have gone home. Early October is nearly as good. If you are traveling in peak summer instead, August has the most reliable shedder supply but the longest waits.

Can you get Maine lobster in the winter?

Yes. Boats fish through the winter, working further offshore in deeper water, and year-round markets and restaurants in Portland, Rockland, Ellsworth and Bangor stock lobster all year. Expect hard-shell only, higher prices, and a lot of closed doors — most seasonal lobster pounds shut down between late October and late May.

Why is Maine lobster cheaper in the summer?

Because summer is when the inshore shed happens, and shedders flood the market. Soft-shell lobsters also cannot be shipped any distance, so the supply has to be sold locally, which pushes prices down further. A hard-shell lobster in February is scarcer, holds more meat per pound, and can be sold anywhere in the country — three separate reasons it costs more.