Tom Birarelli can now say something many lobstermen can’t: he caught a blue lobster — a 1 in 2 million find.
He caught the shellfish Sunday while fishing by Halfway Rock, about 10 miles from Beverly Harbor, with his deckhands Mike Rotondo and Chris Crowell.
Birarelli pulled up the trawl, which Crowell said usually has 20 to 30 lobsters in it, and saw the brilliant blue lobster near the bottom.
“I called my other two deckhands over and I was like, ‘Guys, you won’t believe this,’ and we were just astonished,” he said.
Birarelli is a fourth-generation lobsterman and said he has been on the boat since he could walk. Now, he runs the family business, Water Street Lobster, with his brother Tim.
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This is the first time Tom Birarelli has caught a blue lobster, but he said family members have found them in the past.
He plans to offer the lobster to the New England Aquarium.
“I’d like to find him a good home, where whoever wants him is going to treat him right, and if not, I’d rather just let him go,” Birarrelli said. “I just don’t want something that cool to go to waste.”
The lobster is currently in a cage with a bunch of bait, “to kind of keep it locked up and safe,” Rotondo said.
The catch was an especially unusual experience for Crowell, a 17-year-old Lynn English High School student, because this was his first lobstering season.
Erica Moser can be reached at erica.moser@globe.com.