tldr; i spent the fall fishing for lobs instead of fishing for jobs. it was cold and physically taxing.
The horizon, shrouded between the darkness of night and the waves of the Atlantic, is nigh impossible to distinguish before dawn. Outside of an occasional beam from a distant lighthouse and the constellations twinkling above, there is nothing shining into the expanse of cold darkness lying before me. The hum of pickup trucks crescendos into a screeching halt, and insulated by hot coffee and wool sweaters, fishermen arrive at the pier. Their breath's condensation lingers in the frigid air as we climb into skiffs and motor to our vessels moored in deeper water.
Ignition. The larger beasts awaken. Brilliance emits from the headlights. The radio echoes its country tunes into the silence, and my nostrils are awoken by the wretched cocktail of dead fish and ammonia. The day has begun.
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I grew up in Washington, under the shadow of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. The basics of food systems were ingrained in me from a young age, thanks to the Salmon Days festival, and my parents nurtured me with varieties of seafood. It wasn't until my family visited our former neighbors in Boston that my craving for lobster began. Since then, the spiny, clawed Homarus americanus quickly became the star of seafood in my life, and has maintained its ranking at the pinnacle of my personal Seafood Power Rankings.
COVID-19 took a swipe at my career, and like many, I toyed with the idea of other career paths. I've always been fascinated by the supply chain of goods. I love seafood. What would an adventure of fishing, film photography, and frosty temperatures look like? One could plausibly argue that these months encapsulated my life experience. A little unstructured, mostly spontaneous, and definitely unique (or so I thought).
Within a span of a week in September, I told my parents my idea. I'd become a lobsterman for a season, earn enough to keep me financially stable, and enjoy the fall colors. I exhausted my usual resources and ended up using Furnished Finder to land a room, a tool initially developed for traveling nurses. Obviously not a nurse, it took a bit of convincing and haggling to find a room. Luckily, finding the job was surprisingly easy.
Imagine a Craigslist job posting in its most stereotypical form. No name attached, a small picture of a boat, 10 digits to call, and exactly 12 words in lowercase —
"help wanted on lobster boat. must have drivers license unless in area"
I rang the number, the captain picked up, said "Ayuh, call me the day before you're ready to go out." It was that simple.
To some, the housing and job situations seemed sketchy, but to me, that's embracing the adventure. I hurriedly packed a suitcase and shuttled myself across the country to Arundel, ME. The day I arrived at my house, I gave my captain a call, and he told me to be at the docks the next day at 3:30am with a packed lunch and lots of energy.
Energy? I can bring it.
Packed lunch? Easy.
3:30am? Not my strong suit, but I can go to bed early, right?
Nope. My Seahawks were selected to play Sunday Night Football against the Patriots that first night. That thrilling matchup ended with my adrenaline surging through my body at about 12:30am ET. That also meant that my first day on the boat would be completed at the intersection of Sleepdeprived Street and Fivehourenergy Avenue.
3:00am — An Android alarm can only be snoozed for so long. After slogging my way out of bed, I don a thermal shirt, layer with another shirt, layer again, and layer a hoodie over that. My captain told me to wear multiple layers that I'll never want to wear again outside of lobstering. Early mornings in October can drop to the mid 30s. In the heart of fall and winter it drops lower. Lord, have mercy.
Mark Twain famously said, "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."
I had just finished four years in the Bay Area and I believe I am qualified to make this distinction. I'm sorry, Mr. Twain — the coldest winter one can spend is not a summer in San Francisco, but almost assuredly is an early morning in deep fall, off the coast of Maine.
After commuting down to the docks at Cape Porpoise and throwing on my rubber boots, I run into the other early risers. Captain John greets me with an "ayuh." Cliff, an experienced sternman will join us once every other week, and is here to teach me the ropes. Most days, it'd end up being just me and my captain, floating the skiff out to his boat, moored in the darkness.
4:00am — Showtime. The lights on the South Wind IV illuminate, and the engine is revving. Other fishing vessels also begin their days and form a line for the loading dock.
After bringing the boat dockside, I wheel out the most abhorrent, repulsive, foul-smelling dead fish you will ever smell festering inside large, blue 55gal drums. I honestly thought I knew what rotten fish smelled like — I can confidently say that I did not. It reeked. I cannot verbalize how bad this smelled.
We hoist one drum full of redfish, one full of skate, and one split between haddock and pogies. I also grab a few buckets full of bagged pig fatbacks onto the boat.
4:15am — We sail out about 10mi east, and the radio blares WPOR 101.9, "Today's Country!" On our way to the trawls of pots, I throw on my Grundens bib and a pair of thin rubber gloves. As the manageable waves bump us from side to side, I reach my arms into the vats of dead fish. Each of the 20 spudgers will have a pogie, a skate, two redfish, another skate, some haddock, and then the fatback bag, in that specific order. The skates and fatbacks will last a long time, while the redfish and haddock will usually be eaten quickly, or wither away in the briny sea.
5:15am — The sun slowly awakens, a couple hours too late if you ask me. The temperature climbs from freezing to a manageable chill.
By using a computer system, John is able to find a general vicinity of where his 800 traps lie. He's reached the maximum number of lobster traps a commercial fisherman can lay out is but we'll only harvest 200 a day. Sitting on silt and bookended by two buoys 300ft above them are the metal traps full of crustacean gold. A lobster trap is about 2'x2'x4' and will weigh 50-60lbs. Historically the traps were made of wood, but ones today are made of meshed wire. Our trawls are marked by buoys with a red top, white middle, and neon green bottom, though it's significantly harder to find them if the sun isn't up yet, or when there's a swell.
After identifying one of our trawls, I (attempt to) snag the buoy out of the water with a mooring hook and attach it to the winch. If I miss, it'll take another minute or two to turn the vessel around, and that can be costly. The winch begins furiously pulling up the rope covered in grime, while I scrub the buoy of moss.
Creaking and squeaking, our pully can't bring the trap all the way onto the boat. I reach over the starboard edge, and essentially power-clean the trap onto our boat, ensuring the trap's rope doesn't get entangled in the winch. I'll turn the trap to fit on the edge of our boat and open it up.
On a good day, there may be a lobster or ten in a trap. On a bad day, there will be a lobster or ten in an entire trawl. John tosses the undersized lobsters, any lobster with eggs, and any lobster that has a notch in the tail back into the ocean. We make a v-shaped notch in the tail flippers of egg-bearing female lobsters that we catch. The tail remains marked even after she has hatched her eggs, so future lobstermen can quickly identify that this is a breeding lobster. The efforts to increase lobster sustainability were a welcome surprise. We'll keep our crustacean friends who have carpaces measuring 3.25in to 5in, claws or not, and throw them into a drum.
As he sorts through the lobster catch, I rebait the trap with the spudger, tie the bait onto a thread, and ensure that none of the bait is able to be eaten from outside the trap. My Cub Scout knowledge was lost in the years, so I had to relearn the basic half-hitch and full-hitch knots. When the trap is rebaited, I lug the trap and carry it to the back half of the boat, where I'll line the traps up in a row of five. It's crucial to keep the traps lined up with the rope end facing out, so they're able to fall off the stern in order. By the time I've carried the iron cage to the stern and lined it up, another trap is waiting to be pulled up on the side of the boat. I curse to myself, knowing that I'm behind schedule and tiring already.
The most dangerous part of lobstering is watching the rope. After pulling and rebaiting 20 traps, then moving them to the stern, we hit the gas and start moving to the next trawl. If your foot gets caught in the rope as the lobster traps are drawn back into the ocean, you will be pulled in, you will be brought to the bottom of the ocean, and you will perish. By the time the boat is turned around, the winch is hooked up and the rope is pulling you back in, you'll have drowned in the frigid waters. So, when the captain says we're going, you step away from the rope, and watch as the buoy, anchors, and traps are pulled back into the water.
An experienced sternman will be able to accomplish an entire trawl from buoy-pull to trap-set in about 20 mins. I have no comment on how long a trawl takes little ol' me.
6:00am to 6:15am — Even after a couple trawls, I'm huffing and puffing. We sail 10 minutes to the next trawl and I wish I could use this time to rest, but I need to rebait the spudgers, and then rubber-band the lobsters. The rebaiting stinks (literally and figuratively), but I enjoy the banding. Lobsters have a larger crusher claw, and a smaller scissor claw, and each claw is banded with a biodegradable rubber band. The lobsters are thrown into a tank and I'll shout out the count once no more remain, to which John will nod and give me another, "Ayuh." If "the lobs are crawlin'" and it's been a good trawl, we may pull 40+ keepers. I've also had dead trawls where we get no more than 5 keepers over the 20 traps. It can be hit or miss, as the season, tides, and other factors (Hurricane Teddy) mess with our trawls.
2:00pm — We repeat this process for the ten trawls, and then (finally) sail back to port. I organize the lobsters into crates. Each crate carries 90lbs of the crustaceans. We'll typically catch 4 crates of lobster, or around 300 total lobsters in a day. I've heard legends of up to 40 crates during ridiculous days, in which the entire tank underneath the deck is used to house lobsters instead of keeping them in tanks above deck, but that didn't happen while I was there. Once crated, I clean the stern of the boat, move the winch, and brush the deck. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a sternman's life for me.
2:45pm — When we reach our port, we beeline to the station they call the "Lobster Car". This is a wholesale buyer (but part of the same family's operation) who divides the catch by softshell and hardshells, and then measures our catch into exactly 90lbs per crate. COVID took a very large toll on this industry. The demand isn't there because there are no restaurants to buy the lobsters, and the prices are lower as a result. Softshell lobsters went about $4.50/lb this season, and hardshells may be around $6.50/lb. The captain is paid in cash and sternmen get a percentage of the cut.
The lobsters end up being driven to a warehouse a mile from the pier. Mentioned before, this entire operation is a family affair, which I find fascinating. It's owned by three brothers, two of which (incl. John) are full-time lobstermen and have lived this life the past 40+ years. The third brother runs the bait supply and lobster distribution. He works with suppliers up and down the east coast to get the redfish, herring, haddock, skate, pogies, etc., and then store them in freezers. The same operation will operate the Lobster Car, and will buy the lobsters from the fishermen. They then sell the lobsters anywhere in the world, with free overnight shipping. They have a few trucks that they drive up and down the east coast, dropping off lobsters as needed. These types of operations and co-ops are common throughout the commercial lobstering industry.
3:30pm — By this time, I'm exhausted, but am back onshore. I walk over to the pier's seafood shack (owned by, you guessed it, the family's company) and order the seafood chowder, and if I'm feeling vengeful, a lobster roll. This is by far the highlight of my day. The silky chowder with bits of haddock, lobster, and scallops nourishes my weary soul. There is no better chowder nor lobster roll in the world and you cannot convince me otherwise.
I'd like to say the days get easier over time, but they only partially do. At the end of the work day, my arms have no strength left, my shoulders hurt, my fingers have been pinched, and my back is aching. Oddly enough, my mind is alert and awake. Do you remember taking finals in college and being mentally exhausted after taking them, and maybe going on a run to release stress? This is the opposite of that. I am physically broken, but wouldn't mind reading a book.
I drive home, questioning why I chose to do this, and filling my car with the stench of rotten fish. My host immediately begs me to shower and wash my clothes, to which I oblige. Even after being washed immediately, my clothes will still smell of dead fish and seawater. John was right; I will no longer wear these clothes outside of fishing. I'll pull my hoodie and jeans out of the dryer, and toss them in a corner in my room where they won't stink up the rest of my clothes in drawers.
6:30pm sharp — When half past six rolls around, the weather reports are released and my captain calls me if we're going out the next day. I'll make dinner, and try to be in bed by 8pm, unless the Seahawks are playing, in which case I'll head out to buy a Five Hour Energy, knowing I'll later regret this decision. For some reason, they were slotted into Sunday/Monday/Thursday Night Football more often than usual. This was extremely detrimental to my sleep.
The life of a lobsterman is arduous and my respect for the men and women working in this industry has skyrocketed. My back and shoulders were consistently sore, my wrists hurt, and my sleep schedule was so far off that I was waking up when my friends on the west coast are going to bed. It's hard labor, icy mornings, and long hours, and then the reward is all dependent on a catch you can't really control. Add being a year-round profession, and the fact they'll only stop for high winds and/or hurricanes? It's a rough going.
Comparing to "regular" life — In 2021, I've begun a new job back within the familiar confines of Excel worksheets, but the contrast of working as a lobsterman vs. as a financial analyst lives daily in my head. During my time in Maine, I asked my captain and other sternmen if they had heard of Airbnb or Accenture, to which they all said no. I received exactly zero work-related emails. There were no SQL queries, pivot tables, nor business cases during my time lobstering. There were no Zoom calls, and certainly no Powerpoint presentations. It's obviously a completely different environment, and it was pleasantly refreshing to escape the world of corporate America.
Off the boat, I had a blast in Maine and highly recommend visiting to anyone. The pristine coastline during New England falls is unmatched, and the driving the Kancamagus was a joy. I took too many film pictures and ate too few lobsters, even at one a day. In my free time, I enjoyed writing to my middle-school teachers to thank them for their investment in me, and reading up on the science behind the Enneagram personality test. I also got rear-ended resulting in my rental car being totaled, and had ridiculous lobster feasts with extended family. To say my fall Down East was eventful would be downplaying it.
I hope my experience highlights these incredibly tough, generational businesses run by resilient men and women. I have the utmost respect for the people involved in the consumable supply chain industries. Lobsters are expensive, but they are delicious.
If you have questions about my experience, or want an easy lobster recipe, I'd love to chat!
If you enjoyed this, please give Luna Soley's essay in The Outside a read. She is an unbelievable student-writer who shared a similar experience.
