This past weekend Brendan and I took the Catch a Piece of Maine boat out together for the first time this season. Usually our busy schedules keep one of us on shore where the other gets the excitement of hauling traps. The boat departed around 6am with flat calm seas and little wind. Our day of hauling began 20 yards from shore off Portland headlight in the shallows of a rocky reef made of boulders and broken rock formations. As we looked down making sure we wouldn’t hit bottom in the shoal water, swaying kelp seemed to be only feet below our vessel. Our Catch a Piece of Maine boat draws three and a half feet of water and our depth sounder reported a total depth of nine feet. This is the type of bottom Captain Randy Wood calls, “the jaws of death.” It is extremely risky and dangerous to be lobstering this close to the rocks with the risk of rogue waves capsizing the boat sending us into the cold waters to fend for ourselves. Fortunate for us, the seas conditions were perfect with little if any waves and no report of change in weather conditions. Brendan and I have full respect for the sea and its ability to change in a moments notice. The sea allowed us to lobster in a dangerous area where other lobstermen haven’t fished. Today the untouched fishing bottom proved to be prosperous with a two pound lobster out of our first trap. Tomorrow is a different story…
Captain John Ready