Lobster 101
My name is Ben Townsend, and I’m a Commercial Lobsterman. I just turned 21 in June, and I’ve been working for my family’s lobster business since I was 14. During lobster season, I live in Truro, Massachusetts and fish out of Provincetown, Mass. My uncle Chris Townsend, who owns the family lobster business, has been lobstering for 40 years.
Lobstering, no matter where you do it, is a year-round job. We, in Massachusetts, work six months to fish for six months. Even in those six months of fishing, the first and last months are slower, so we have about four months of good catching.
I would consider myself an expert at “my type” of lobstering, which for the last six years has been in the Cape Cod Bay with a state license and landing permit (I’ll explain the other specifics later). However, this year, we made some big changes; ie. Bought a bigger boat, a federal license, and more gear.
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You might ask, “why?” And I’d say to that “great question,” and start walking away. Sadly, I can’t do that here. Lobstering, and most fisheries for that matter, in the Cape Cod Bay have been dying over the last few years. Particularly the fisheries and wildlife that rely on water quality and a specific water temperature, like shellfish. Oysters, Clams, Lobsters, Crabs, etc. have all been clearly hit in the last decade or so. Water temperatures are higher than they have ever been, oxygen levels on the bottom have never been lower (in some places 0% - which kills everything in a matter of hours) and actual water quality has been horrendous. Lobstering, or the type of lobstering that I grew up doing, is dead.
The Trap
“My Type” of lobstering is common in Massachusetts, and similar to Maine, but has its own quirks. Generally, lobsters are caught in traps made of plastic-coated wire, wood, or both. They have heavy weights in the bottom, and usually plastic or wooden runners on the bottom that allow them to sit flat on the deck of a boat.
Traps come in a few different shapes; Square, A-Frame, or Half round. About 90 % of our gear is made up of 4-foot squares, so I’ll focus on those. A trap has entry heads (where the lobsters enter the trap), the kitchen (where the bait sits that attracts the lobsters), and the parlor (where the lobsters are trapped). There is also a door on the top of the trap that allows us to access the lobsters and bait. There are a few other safety and environmental impact features of a trap, but I won’t get into those.
The Retrieval
Now, when a lobster trap goes into the water, it can be retrieved 1 of 2 different ways. The simplest and oldest way is with a single line that lays vertically in the water column, with the trap on one end and the buoy on the other, called a single. The other way, trawl fishing, uses a horizontal line that attaches several traps together at equal intervals. You retrieve this trawl with a vertical line attached to a buoy on one end and the ground line (horizontal line in the water) on the other.
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In the Bay, most of the gear we set is either in sand, mud, or a mix of the two. Our shallowest gear is in about 50 ft of water, deepest is about 90 ft. We start setting gear in late May or early June, but don’t start to catch until the end of the month. It’s slow until around July 4th, when it starts to pick up to a steady 1 or 2 lobsters in every trap.
By the middle of September, the lobstering is really good. We often have weeks upwards up 2000 lbs and occasionally upwards of 3000 lbs.
The Grind
When we go fishing, my day generally starts at around 4 AM, when we meet at the boat and load the bait and ice on that we need for that one day. We steam out to Stellwagen bank, arrive there by 5:30 AM, and begin our day of hauling our traps. We have a planned out schedule for our day, and try to follow it as best we can. On an average day, I will handle 300 traps and over 600 lbs of lobster. I’m generally in by 5pm, which is when I get some food and prep for the next day.
It ain’t easy, but time on the water is never time wasted.
If you’re ever on Cape Cod, stop by and say hi. You can find more about us at Provincetownlobster.com.
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