Strange question - anyone here know any lobstermen?
 

So every trip to the cape, my now 11-year-old son and I, spend a day on a lobsterboat with a great captain I know. This year, instead of doing the usual tourist excursion (casually hauling 15 traps), the captain asked if my son wanted to do a day's real work, more like what he normally does. My son loved the idea, so we spent 6 hours on his boat, hauled 105 traps. My son did a lot of baiting the traps as the came up, and banded the lobsters that were keepers. And he regularly hosed down the boat.

It would be a huge understatement to say he loved it. We will try to get back to P-town to repeat the experience with this guy. But he really, really wants to do it again, he's truly drawn to it. He can't bear the thought of only doing it once a year.

So if anyone here knows of a lobsterman (anywhere in New England) who might be willing to take us out for a day, we'd get there at any time of day, work hard, listen to instruction, and tell funny stories. We'd work all day for free, and I can throw the captain a few bucks.

I caught my son (11 years old!) searching craigslist ads, looking for lobster boats that need a deckhand. I'm not sure how he was planning to commute to whatever site he lined up for himself, or how he was planning on factoring school into the equation, but he would figure something out. But I'd love to encourage his interest.

good for him!!! usually the smell of the bait does most people in

Thanks. He tends to gravitate towards things that are hard enough that most people get turned off, like martial arts.

It was a great combination of a kid who has a real interest in this, getting hooked up with a perfect captain. The guy was a perfect match for my son. At the beginning of the day he told my son that if he did really well, he'd get a prize at the end. At the end, he gave my son a t-shirt with his boat's name on it, and the word "CREW" on the back in huge letters, he wore that shirt for days, until it smelled worse than the bait.

as you can see from the pics, it was also flat calm that day, very unusually calm. That may have had something to do with how much he loved it.

Very cool ; )

I have a friend up (way up) in Maine but I do not expect he would ; ).

I’ve done some time working on a few different lobster boats & my son Leo worked a few summers as a deck hand lobstering.
Big difference doing what you did & doing it day after day.
Just look at adds on commercial forums looking for sternmen.
“Must be drug free, own transportation, no outstanding warrants ect.....)
Sad to say it’s very common and the shame of it they can make good $
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I don’t want him to do it regularly, just maybe a couple of times before school starts, like a fishing charter. I emailed a few guys, I’d expect most wouldn’t feel like indulging him at their place of work, I get that.
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Donny Campbell (Labrador) out of the Mill Warf in Scituate Ma does kids lobster Charters
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Thanks.

And I did see the ads, 99% of them mention alcohol and drug tests.
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Good for him

Don’t get mad...
PFD at that age and environment might be a good idea....

Singles are one thing, trawls another

"Don’t get mad...
PFD at that age and environment might be a good idea...."

A great suggestion, would never get mad at that.

We did mostly trawls all day, I think the first 15 were singles, the next 90 were 10-pot trawls.

It's hard work, done it a few times.

And you never entirely get used to 55gallon drums of herring that have been in the sun for several days

Try contacting my friend Capt Pat Heaney in Newport.

He's a full time lobsterman who also does rec fishing charters in his spare time.

Patrick Heaney
(401) 489-3004
citybytheseacharters@yahoo.com

http://citybytheseacharters.weebly.c...e-captain.html

Thanks, will do!

It's funny, I asked him why he likes it so much, as he was working his butt off, sweating like a pig, and smelly. He said "as long as the captain knows what he's doing, then I feel like the harder I work, the more we'll catch, the more fun I'll have, the more money the captain will make." What he was trying to say, is that for him, there's an immediate payoff for the hard work, and that's not always the case. For him, it's the feeling of instant gratification.

I have a deviated septum, I have a very weak sense of smell, which I assume is an asset. He never complains about the smell, never even mentions it.