We have been to Portsmouth, Maine several times but we had never been lobster fishing. We have eaten a lot of lobsters but really didn’t know the catching process. Having our grandson with us made this the perfect time to learn how to catch lobster. We contacted Rocky Bottom Fisheries and scheduled a lobster fishing tour.
Rocky Bottom Fisheries is located at 60 Portland Pier. When you first arrive you see their check in stand and a wall covered with lobster fishing buoys and traps.
Once on the boat you travel for some time to get out to the location of the traps. This is not a bad thing because the views are great. In fact after I finish this on lobster fishing I will do a post just on the boat ride and the views.
Just before you get to the location of the first buoys everyone has to get dressed to work the traps,
At last we see our buoy. In lobster fishing, every fisherman has his own buoy design, and it is filed with the state. This tells everyone who the traps belongs to.
When you find your buoy the work of lobster fishing begins. You hook onto the buoy and the rope going down to the trap. After hooking the rope onto a pully, the trap is pulled out of the water.
Once the trap in aboard the boat, you find out if you were lucky on not.
Some of the cages or traps were completely void of lobster but all of the traps had crabs in them. The crabs enjoy eating the bait as much as the lobsters do. With all the trap you have to clean the crabs out. The Captain showed us how to remove the crabs and toss them back into the water. We all took part in the crab removal with out getting our fingers in their claws. Just off the side of the boat we had visitors waiting for the crabs to be tossed back into the water.
After cleaning the traps, you have to rebait them,
With that done you push the trap back into the water.
When you finish the lobster fishing the captain and crew explain the lobster fishing laws and the rule regarding keepers and releasing. Lobster fishermen release female egg bearing lobsters and they mark the tail with a V cut so other lobster men can see it and know to release it. We caught several with the V cut which were released and then we caught one that had not been caught before and the Captain showed us how the V cut is made .
With the lobster fishing done for the day, the Captain allowed some one to take over the wheel for a while as we returned to port.