Confession time: I grew up five hours from the nearest ocean. Apart from a wonderful semester with the Williams Mystic program studying intertidal organisms, Moby Dick and coastal property disputes, I didn’t know much about the sea. I certainly didn’t know I’d be moving to the middle of it.
In my hometown, nobody thinks about the tide. One of the biggest dangers you face in Cazenovia Lake is scraping against a zebra mussel (to be fair, I still have a scar).
I like to think that years spent honing my crayfish catching techniques in an ankle-deep creek helped prepare me for life in a lobstering community. From what I can tell the basic principle is the same: watch out for the pointy end.
On Swan’s Island, it’s a pretty safe bet that if you leave your house you’ll run into at least one lobster fisherman. They’re the ones playing volleyball and chatting in the dump line and picking up their kids after school. There are limited job options for our 330 (give or take) year-rounders, so most men and many women spend their days working on and around the water.
My introduction to lobstering came through music. Two of my band mates—Vernon Johnson (banjo) and Sonny Sprague (fiddle, vocals) are long-time fishermen. Donnie Carlson (drums) is a trap builder. During rehearsals I got a sense of what the day-to-day life was like—tired evenings, good or bad hauls, watching the price per pound.
Sonny took me out twice last summer. I was considered bad luck the first time because a steering fluid leak meant a repair trip to Stonington. Totally not my fault. The second time was more successful.
Sonny’s sternman, Wayne LeMoine, showed me how to stuff bait pockets and put rubber bands on the claws. He made sure I saw every cool thing that came up in the traps, like a hermit crab I swear was as big as my head.
Lobster fishing hasn’t always been the main industry on Swan’s. Prior to 1800, cod and haddock were the only profitable catches. Then mackerel became king. Vessels headed to southern waters in early spring and returned around the first of July to fish closer to home.
Swan’s Island fishermen were famous for their success along the Atlantic coast, taking first or second place in their catch every year from 1874 to 1889. By 1900, mackerel had been fished out.
The island had a lobster cannery (later converted to clams), a sardine factory and a cod liver oil plant. The Depression and World War II emptied much of the island. Those who remained could at least depend on the ocean to feed their families.
In more recent memory, islanders have seined for herring, built weirs, caught smelt and even sea urchins. Swan’s Island fishermen have actively protected their industry, voluntarily enforcing a lobster trap limit in 1984 and setting boundaries in response to a scallop boom in the late ’60s that brought flocks of draggers threatening the lobster grounds.
Today’s lobstering doesn’t rely on rowed boats, carved buoys, wooden traps, tarred hemp rope or hand-knitted bait pockets. Machines help steer and haul and radios connect boats.
Sonny says a monkey could go fishing, but he’s selling himself short. It’s a complicated industry that has developed over generations. Fishermen experiment with location, timing, bait and even trap color. Some love it and some hate it, but it’s wired into them.
When I hear the motors in the harbor at the break of day, I’m amazed by this unique community. And then I fall back asleep.