I was up at Doubtless Bay over the weekend on a stag. I went for a few dives inside the bay to get out of the wind. As I was going along I saw something odd on the top of hole hanging onto the rock to my surprise it was a Spanish Lobster. Over the next 5 minutes I suddenly started finding heaps of them. Totally stoked as I have always read about them and always wanted one but being from Auckland made it next to impossible. A few differences I noticed compared to the reds are:
1. They don't run away they tend to just stick to the rock so speed isn't a factor more just about ripping them off the rock
2. With the visibility being extremely poor they seem to use this as an advantage to try and hide by being covered in silt
We then went on to cook them. The first thing I noticed is how hard the shell is next to impossible to get a knife through it. The guts were in a solid sack rather like a red which makes it much easier to clean. We did the typical boil for 5-10 minutes. After this we then pan fried them in butter. With the finished result below.
We thought they tasted the same as reds but were more chewy, but still better than packhorse.
Do many people see them often and do you often keep them?