Lobster Fishing: A day in the life
For the curious, here's how an average day in a lobster fisherman's life plays out:
4:35 AM: Wake up. Brush teeth. Dress: Two pairs of sweatpants, two pairs of socks, one t-shirt, two long-sleeved shirts, one wool sweater and one Helly Hansen all-weather fishing hooey (yes, this is a thing).
4:45 AM: Drive 500 meters from fishing cottage to wharf. Meet fellow crew onboard our boat, the F/V Nicole and Terri-Lee.
There are three crewmembers in our operation: the skipper (my dad), the first mate (Terri-Lee's husband), and your humble narrator.
The boat itself is about 36 feet long and entirely open save for an abbreviated cabin at the bow, which itself is partially open to the elements. There's a tiny fo'c's'le ahead and below of the wheelhouse, with a stove and some storage space, but the boat is pretty primitive.
The engine, for those who wonder about these things, sits in a little well about midway down the deck, and is accessed by lifting a hatch. Otherwise, the deck is featureless save the totes, boxes and assorted paraphernalia we bring aboard to process and store the lobster.
4:55 AM: Dress in stylish fishing outfit: rubber pants, rubber raincoat, baseball cap and rubber gloves. Cast off mooring lines and set out from harbour. Eat breakfast (granola bar and banana) en route to fishing grounds.
5:25 AM: Arrive at fishing grounds, roughly two nautical miles from the northern coast of Prince Edward Island, and within sight of Cavendish, home of Anne of Green Gables.
Depending on the way the wind is blowing, the seas can be calm or stormy. We typically fish in seas up to three meters (nine feet) or so, though a couple times this year we've been caught out in three to four meter seas (up to twelve feet), which were no fun at all.
Rarely is the sun shining and the ocean flat calm, but when it is, the fishing's a joy. Most of the time it's grey and we're getting tossed around in our little boat.
5:26 AM: Begin fishing.
PEI lobster fishermen are allotted 300 traps with which to fish. These traps are divided into 50 strings, each consisting of six traps apiece and with a foam buoy at each end.
Each trap is wooden and weighted with concrete and weighs about ninety pounds dry and probably 120 pounds when waterlogged. They look just like the lobster pots you're probably picturing right now.
On a typical day of fishing, we'll work our way through each of these fifty strings. The skipper steers the boat to the buoy and the first mate retrieves the buoy line with the gaff and runs the line through our hydraulic hauler.
We haul the first trap aboard and then set about emptying it of lobster and rebating it as needed. We bait with flounder a couple of times a week, and with mackerel or herring pretty much every day.
It's my job to impale the bait fish on their spindle and then close the trap and walk it to the stern of the boat for re-setting. We do the whole thing six times and then, when the traps have all been hauled, the skipper drives to where he wants to drop them, and I set them overboard.
Setting is kind of scary, given the amount of loose groundline passing beneath my boots, any loop of which could snag on my foot and drag me to my death. But accidents are, somehow, a rarity, even in the pitching seas.
Each string of gear takes about five minutes to haul and reset. When the gear is back in the water, the skipper motors to the next string, which can take a few seconds or long minutes, depending on how close our traps are.
We fish in about a two-square mile area, so our average travel time is a couple minutes between strings, but when the gear's spread out it can make the difference between ending the work day at 10:30 or one in the afternoon.
While the traps are being set, the first mate is sorting the lobster at the catch table. He throws away lobster that are too small, and egg-bearing female lobster (spawners), and sorts the rest into canners (small) and markets (larger).
The market lobster have their claws banded, and both canners and markets are stored in large totes to protect them from the elements.
The other thing is when the gear needs to be moved from area to area, we pile as many strings as possible on the stern of the boat and then motor away. We've put as many as six strings onboard, most of it balanced on the washboards on both sides of the boat.
Amazingly, it hardly ever falls into the water without our putting it there, even in stormy seas, which is a good thing. When the traps fall overboard accidentally it makes a hell of a mess, and the skipper gets angry. We try to prevent that kind of thing.
12:00 PM (on average): We finish hauling the gear, and re-set the last string. The skipper turns the boat back toward harbour, and motors home, being careful not to run over any other fisherman's buoys as he goes.
There are about twenty-five other boats who fish in our area, and all of them have fifty strings of gear, so the water is filled with buoys of all colours, many of them trailing long lines of rope on the surface.
It's hell to run over a buoy and get rope caught in the propeller, so the skipper is pretty careful. Sometimes, though, we do get rope in the wheel, and then everybody swears and tries to wrench it out, and hopes that we won't have to be towed into town.
So far, that hasn't happened, but we have spent hours tied up at the end of the day trying to coax great masses of rope from the propeller shaft.
While the skipper is driving, the first mate and your humble narrator move the lobster to a box at the stern for a washdown. Then we spray the rest of the deck down, and your narrator retreats into the cabin for another granola bar.
It takes about twenty-five minutes to drive back into town.
12:30 PM: We arrive at the fishbuyer inside North Rustico harbour. We sell our catch daily, and are paid weekly. The buyer weighs our catch and gives us a fish slip, along with whatever new bait we require.
Lately, there have been tons of tourists congregated around the buyer's plant, eager to take pictures of the lobster, and of us. I talked to a couple of women from Seattle the other day, one of whom asked me if we ever caught Alaskan salmon.
We do not.
The offload process takes about ten minutes.
12:40 PM: On alternate days, we refuel the boat a few berths away from our tie-up spot. Our boat has a 200 litre tank, and given that my dad drives like an Andretti, we generally put 180 litres in every couple of days.
One day, however, when the skipper was out of town and we had a relief captain aboard, there was a mixup in the fuelling process, and we found ourselves adrift and out of fuel just as we entered the harbour.
Luckily, there were other boats around who towed us out of harm's way, but if we'd run out a few minutes earlier, we would have beached the boat, or lost it on the rocks. We now carry an extra five gallon jerry can of diesel just in case.
12:50 PM: We return to our tie-up spot, tie up the boat and shut her down for the day. The skipper runs off to save the world in the city, and I head back to the fishing cottage.
12:55 PM: I arrive at the fishing cottage. Eat whatever I can get my hands on, and jump in the shower.
1:15PM: Lunch. And Sportscentre. And cursing the shoddy internet at the fishing cottage while I try to post the daily lobster pun.
3:00 PM: I tear myself away from my blogroll and bring up the day's writing project. Write and edit for three hours.
6:00 PM: Finish writing. Catch up on emails and read more blogs. Force myself to eat something else. Generally laze about.
8:00 PM: Bed. It's still bright as day outside, and the man in the cottage beside mine is coughing up his spleen on the other side of our very thin wall. I toss and turn for a while, and then I fall asleep.
Morning (if it can be called that) always comes too soon.
4:35 AM: Wake up. Brush teeth. Dress: Two pairs of sweatpants, two pairs of socks, one t-shirt, two long-sleeved shirts, one wool sweater and one Helly Hansen all-weather fishing hooey (yes, this is a thing).
4:45 AM: Drive 500 meters from fishing cottage to wharf. Meet fellow crew onboard our boat, the F/V Nicole and Terri-Lee.
There are three crewmembers in our operation: the skipper (my dad), the first mate (Terri-Lee's husband), and your humble narrator.
The boat itself is about 36 feet long and entirely open save for an abbreviated cabin at the bow, which itself is partially open to the elements. There's a tiny fo'c's'le ahead and below of the wheelhouse, with a stove and some storage space, but the boat is pretty primitive.
The engine, for those who wonder about these things, sits in a little well about midway down the deck, and is accessed by lifting a hatch. Otherwise, the deck is featureless save the totes, boxes and assorted paraphernalia we bring aboard to process and store the lobster.
4:55 AM: Dress in stylish fishing outfit: rubber pants, rubber raincoat, baseball cap and rubber gloves. Cast off mooring lines and set out from harbour. Eat breakfast (granola bar and banana) en route to fishing grounds.
5:25 AM: Arrive at fishing grounds, roughly two nautical miles from the northern coast of Prince Edward Island, and within sight of Cavendish, home of Anne of Green Gables.
Depending on the way the wind is blowing, the seas can be calm or stormy. We typically fish in seas up to three meters (nine feet) or so, though a couple times this year we've been caught out in three to four meter seas (up to twelve feet), which were no fun at all.
Rarely is the sun shining and the ocean flat calm, but when it is, the fishing's a joy. Most of the time it's grey and we're getting tossed around in our little boat.
5:26 AM: Begin fishing.
PEI lobster fishermen are allotted 300 traps with which to fish. These traps are divided into 50 strings, each consisting of six traps apiece and with a foam buoy at each end.
Each trap is wooden and weighted with concrete and weighs about ninety pounds dry and probably 120 pounds when waterlogged. They look just like the lobster pots you're probably picturing right now.
On a typical day of fishing, we'll work our way through each of these fifty strings. The skipper steers the boat to the buoy and the first mate retrieves the buoy line with the gaff and runs the line through our hydraulic hauler.
We haul the first trap aboard and then set about emptying it of lobster and rebating it as needed. We bait with flounder a couple of times a week, and with mackerel or herring pretty much every day.
It's my job to impale the bait fish on their spindle and then close the trap and walk it to the stern of the boat for re-setting. We do the whole thing six times and then, when the traps have all been hauled, the skipper drives to where he wants to drop them, and I set them overboard.
Setting is kind of scary, given the amount of loose groundline passing beneath my boots, any loop of which could snag on my foot and drag me to my death. But accidents are, somehow, a rarity, even in the pitching seas.
Each string of gear takes about five minutes to haul and reset. When the gear is back in the water, the skipper motors to the next string, which can take a few seconds or long minutes, depending on how close our traps are.
We fish in about a two-square mile area, so our average travel time is a couple minutes between strings, but when the gear's spread out it can make the difference between ending the work day at 10:30 or one in the afternoon.
While the traps are being set, the first mate is sorting the lobster at the catch table. He throws away lobster that are too small, and egg-bearing female lobster (spawners), and sorts the rest into canners (small) and markets (larger).
The market lobster have their claws banded, and both canners and markets are stored in large totes to protect them from the elements.
The other thing is when the gear needs to be moved from area to area, we pile as many strings as possible on the stern of the boat and then motor away. We've put as many as six strings onboard, most of it balanced on the washboards on both sides of the boat.
Amazingly, it hardly ever falls into the water without our putting it there, even in stormy seas, which is a good thing. When the traps fall overboard accidentally it makes a hell of a mess, and the skipper gets angry. We try to prevent that kind of thing.
12:00 PM (on average): We finish hauling the gear, and re-set the last string. The skipper turns the boat back toward harbour, and motors home, being careful not to run over any other fisherman's buoys as he goes.
There are about twenty-five other boats who fish in our area, and all of them have fifty strings of gear, so the water is filled with buoys of all colours, many of them trailing long lines of rope on the surface.
It's hell to run over a buoy and get rope caught in the propeller, so the skipper is pretty careful. Sometimes, though, we do get rope in the wheel, and then everybody swears and tries to wrench it out, and hopes that we won't have to be towed into town.
So far, that hasn't happened, but we have spent hours tied up at the end of the day trying to coax great masses of rope from the propeller shaft.
While the skipper is driving, the first mate and your humble narrator move the lobster to a box at the stern for a washdown. Then we spray the rest of the deck down, and your narrator retreats into the cabin for another granola bar.
It takes about twenty-five minutes to drive back into town.
12:30 PM: We arrive at the fishbuyer inside North Rustico harbour. We sell our catch daily, and are paid weekly. The buyer weighs our catch and gives us a fish slip, along with whatever new bait we require.
Lately, there have been tons of tourists congregated around the buyer's plant, eager to take pictures of the lobster, and of us. I talked to a couple of women from Seattle the other day, one of whom asked me if we ever caught Alaskan salmon.
We do not.
The offload process takes about ten minutes.
12:40 PM: On alternate days, we refuel the boat a few berths away from our tie-up spot. Our boat has a 200 litre tank, and given that my dad drives like an Andretti, we generally put 180 litres in every couple of days.
One day, however, when the skipper was out of town and we had a relief captain aboard, there was a mixup in the fuelling process, and we found ourselves adrift and out of fuel just as we entered the harbour.
Luckily, there were other boats around who towed us out of harm's way, but if we'd run out a few minutes earlier, we would have beached the boat, or lost it on the rocks. We now carry an extra five gallon jerry can of diesel just in case.
12:50 PM: We return to our tie-up spot, tie up the boat and shut her down for the day. The skipper runs off to save the world in the city, and I head back to the fishing cottage.
12:55 PM: I arrive at the fishing cottage. Eat whatever I can get my hands on, and jump in the shower.
1:15PM: Lunch. And Sportscentre. And cursing the shoddy internet at the fishing cottage while I try to post the daily lobster pun.
3:00 PM: I tear myself away from my blogroll and bring up the day's writing project. Write and edit for three hours.
6:00 PM: Finish writing. Catch up on emails and read more blogs. Force myself to eat something else. Generally laze about.
8:00 PM: Bed. It's still bright as day outside, and the man in the cottage beside mine is coughing up his spleen on the other side of our very thin wall. I toss and turn for a while, and then I fall asleep.
Morning (if it can be called that) always comes too soon.