Here the boys are getting ready to offload a pile of lobster traps. The cold water temperature haas made the lobstering activity slow down to a crawl and the time will be better spent fixing broken gear and making repairs than going out to catch very few lobsters this time of year. When the last load of traps comes in it is a big relief for lobstermen. It’s the end of another season and hopefully they’ve made enough to carry them through the winter.
The boat had a little over a foot of snow aboard after the snow storm. There’s a whole set of precautions that commercial fishermen have to take to keep their boats going through the extreme cold temperatures. Frozen coolant lines, frozen lobster hoses, snow engines freezing up.
It’s always best to have a block heater which keeps the engine warm and the fuel from gelling up. We plug our truck in and it starts up (usually) pretty easily but without that block heater forgettabout it!
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A couple of days ago this fresh faced youngster came in the office looking for a job on a lobster boat.
Frank usually handles these requests because I hate to go to bat for an unknown and put them on a lobsterboat. Inevitably about 20% of these guys off the street work out. When they don’t work out I feel like I’m the asshole when said greenhead doesn’t show up to go lobstering and the skipper looks at you like it’s your fault because you recommended him.
Well Frank asked the greenhead if he had any previous lobstering experience and he told us that he had gone a couple times on an inshore lobsterman’s boat. Inshore lobstering aboard a boat that only hauls 100 or so traps a day is entirely unlike lobstering on one of the hard core lobstermen with big boats and serious drive. So he didn’t have a whole lot of experience but he looked clean cut and not a druggie and seemed like he had a desire to learn the trade.
So one of our best lobstermen and also one of the most hard core, Tuffy had been looking for a second backman to complement the ever reliable Nate. Tuffy goes HARD. It’s not a boat ride around the inner harbor and back to shore for Tuffy. He’s going deep and hard and through the winter in the worst of elements.
Tuffy
Well of all days to be initiated into the world of hard core lobstering, this poor unfortunate soul got indoctrinated today. In this weather, 25-45 mile per hour north west wind. Not fun. It was pouring rain this morning when they pulled up to get bait and when I saw the greenhead aboard all I could think about was how fucked this kid was going to be today (and not in the good way).
I mentioned to Frank that the “new kid” was on Tuffy’s boat and he rolled his eyes, knowing that the kid is in for a long day.
So fast forward to a few minutes ago. A few bolts of thunder sounded off and the rain was coming down in sheets so Frank decided to call Tuffy to see how they were doing out there. Tuffy said the greenhead had been puking all day long even while he was putting herring into the bait bags.
Tuffy also added “I like bringing new guys. It means I get to eat their lunch.”
I can just picture Tuffy laughing at the kid, saying “Hey kid, you gonna eat that?”
When the kid shakes his head no, weak and a faint color green he’ll rip the brown bag that the greenhead packed off the dash and tear into his peanut butter jelly sandwich. Laughing the whole time.
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Tommy has been doing engine work to the Arethusa all summer long along with other repairs. He had been lobstering out of a lobster boat half it’s size which meant he couldn’t shift lobster traps the way a true lobsterman would to follow the lobsters around. With a boat like the Arethusa you can put a good amount of gear aboard and shift teh gear according to what the lobsters are doing.
There’s a saying in the lobster industry I heard my father say when I was much younger but it has stuck with me. There are “lobstermen” who fish the gear and move the traps around to maximize their catch. Then there are “pot haulers” who simply dump the lobster lobster traps back in the same spots and don’t move the gear around to maximize their catch according to lobster movement patterns.
Tommy Burns is a “lobsterman” and he is now back to lobstering.
Good Morning Gloucester 