A spiny lobster in SF Bay

#1
Today I saw a spiny lobster caught (and poached) in one of the piers in SF Bay today. The people were crabbing and it was caught in a hoop net with the typical crab bait. No accurate guess on the length; I'd say it looked close to the one in Ken's article captioned "A Spiny Lobster from the Shelter Island Pier in San Diego". I did a double take because I almost thought someone had just brought their live supermarket lobster to the pier.

The crabbers kept it and left with it (along with other illegal take) shortly after. Apparently they are not really found north of Point Conception? Not sure what it was doing here.

Second "out of bounds" catch I've seen so far this year, the first being an Opaleye caught (again, not by me) off of the rocky shoreline in Marin County in February this year .
 
#4
Opaleye have been regularly caught in Monterey bay in recent years so not shocked they have made it to Marin

I saw a Facebook post a few months ago that seemed to show a spiny lobster caught in a hoop net in the bay - this apparently makes 2!
 
#6
Could have been released by buddhists after being bought at a store. Quite a few maine lobsters in long beach and redondo because of this.
Wow, that's interesting--didn't know that, so thanks. I looked up the differences and this one did not have claws, so indeed seems like a true spiny lobster and not a Maine one. The irony of "releasing" an invasive species...

Thanks folks for sharing the historical reports of these. Nature and how it changes (and the anomalies within it) is so fascinating.