The lobster industry on PEI is big, in fact some would say it is THE industry of Prince Edward Island. The industry itself usually lands $10 million worth of lobster, and there are various industries attached to the management of that lobster until its arrival in your home in its various forms. However, it all starts with a fisherman and his traps working in one of two seasons on the island, spring for the northern side of the island and fall for the southern side.David Lewis has been a lobster fisher for as long as I have been a physician. He purchased his “gear”, that is his license to commercially fish lobster, in 1995 at the close of the spring season. He has been fishing lobster ever since as an independent fisherman. David is also my neighbor and it is in his old family homestead that Nancy and I make our current home. After a couple of false starts, I finally had the chance to go out lobster fishing with David and his crew (yesterday), and it was a blast. I wanted to go out fishing because I take care of lobster fishers. I see and treat them for a variety of illnesses and injuries but I have done so for the last year not really knowing what they did in their job. I have found over the years as a physician, that if I know the kind of labor done in a particular job, then I am better able to treat the individual patients, and I am better able to help them with their chronic diseases. David gave me the chance to find out what a lobsterman does on the water.
A day spent fishing 
The day begins at 4 am as I clamber into the truck to head to the port with David and his son Derek (who is spending his first year post High School fishing lobster). After the obligatory stop for a coffee at the Alberton Bakery we are off to the wharf. Once there we meet the rest of the crew, Chad who has been working with David for the last 8 years, and Shawn, a High School student who works on Saturdays during the season.
The day begins at 4 am as I clamber into the truck to head to the port with David and his son Derek (who is spending his first year post High School fishing lobster). After the obligatory stop for a coffee at the Alberton Bakery we are off to the wharf. Once there we meet the rest of the crew, Chad who has been working with David for the last 8 years, and Shawn, a High School student who works on Saturdays during the season.
Everyone jumps onto the boat and immediately begins working without any instruction. Lunches are stowed; mooring lines are cast as the engine fires up. It is less than five minutes from arrival to departure from the harbor and into the waters surrounding the northern point of the island. As we leave the harbor, David begins educating the novice on all the tools of navigation for his fishing boat, and the crew set up the deck to receive lobsters and reload the traps with cut bait.
Navigation on the fishing boat takes two forms, the innate knowledge of the captain and the combination radar-global positioning satellite system. It is the latter that he begins to explain in detail. The global positioning function allows him to plot several important details for our travels. First he has a plot for the return to port. This is important since if the weather is foul or foggy, he can return to port without worry that he will run aground or become lost. The maroon plot line that curves a graceful arc across the screen also happens to describe our travel out of the port. The second function that is available to him from this system is that each of his traps is plotted as an individual waypoint on the system. He can travel directly to the trap even in the densest fog as his system allows him to adjust the screen so that it displays a circle that is 15 meters around the boat. Additional functionality of the system are that it also has a map overlay function so that those of us who are land oriented can find out where we are in relation to our landmarks from shore. Finally the radar function allows him to see the other vessels in the area, again to protect him in the fog.
It is ten minutes when we arrive at our first trap-line for the day. In all we will visit 60 such lines, moving those that did not produce as expected. It is roughly 4:25 am when the first trap comes out of the water. As the boat slides up to the buoy Derek leans out and hooks and drags it on board. The line is quickly fed over the pulley and into running winch which quickly hauls the first trap to the side of the boat. David grabs the trap and as he dead lifts it with his right hand, the left follows the lead line that attaches the trap to the trap-line. He deftly pops this over and off the pulley as Chad grabs the trap from him and beg
ins to off-load the lobster within. As Chad finishes with the lobster, the trap passes to Derek and Shawn who remove the old bait and load it with fresh bait fish. All the while, David is keeping the boat as still as possible to avoid entangling the trap-line in the propeller. In short order all the traps are in place, and the second buoy is on board. At this point Chad has turned his hand to the second duty, measuring and counting the lobster from this trap-line. He calls out the number of each type, market or canner, and David records this in his journal. He is looking for something on the order of 3 and 13 as a minimum for the trap line, and if it is underperforming he will move it to a new location. Once the market lobsters are separated from the canners, their claws are banded to keep them from attacking each other. If the trap-line has performed well, then David will replace it in the same location. The first buoy is back into the water as Shawn and Derek watch the line play out, keeping watch for snags that will entangle the traps. As the line plays out each trap is dropped off the boat and into the water until the last one is in then out goes the second buoy. 
ins to off-load the lobster within. As Chad finishes with the lobster, the trap passes to Derek and Shawn who remove the old bait and load it with fresh bait fish. All the while, David is keeping the boat as still as possible to avoid entangling the trap-line in the propeller. In short order all the traps are in place, and the second buoy is on board. At this point Chad has turned his hand to the second duty, measuring and counting the lobster from this trap-line. He calls out the number of each type, market or canner, and David records this in his journal. He is looking for something on the order of 3 and 13 as a minimum for the trap line, and if it is underperforming he will move it to a new location. Once the market lobsters are separated from the canners, their claws are banded to keep them from attacking each other. If the trap-line has performed well, then David will replace it in the same location. The first buoy is back into the water as Shawn and Derek watch the line play out, keeping watch for snags that will entangle the traps. As the line plays out each trap is dropped off the boat and into the water until the last one is in then out goes the second buoy. 
This assembly line of activity proceeds for roughly half the traps that are near the Northport area, and then it is a 20 minute ride to the next location for his traps. This is further south starting in the region of Lenox Island down to Summerside. During the break, the crew gets a pot of water boiling and an entire 24 count package of hot dogs goes into the pot for a snack as they head to the next section of traps. Everyone is pretty happy as the younger members of the crew eat far more dogs than David. For myself, I eat one, but since the ocean is a bit rough, and I am a novice, I figure it is more prudent to have some water and let food wait for calmer seas.
Once the traps have been fished, David steers for port. As he does so, the crew begins to clean the boat of all the debris of the day. The decks are scrubbed and washed, the cabin is wiped down, and all the loose gear is stowed away and generally picked up. By the time we arrive back in harbor, it does not look like they have been working at all, except for the cases of lobster. Once in harbor, we await our turn to off-load our catch and take on more ice and more bait. The total weight for the day was 851 pounds of lobster. David is happy, although like any fisherman, he would have liked a bit more catch, but this is a good day. As he backs the boat into the slip and the mooring lines are re-attached, the crew gets the lobster together for the orders that they have received while out fishing. As with all lobster fishers, David gets a few personal orders for lobster while he is out fishing, and he is more than happy to put some back for you. If you ask nicely, he will even boil them for you in salt water and cool them down in fresh ocean water. It is what he did for ours, and let me tell you, there is nothing better than lobster prepared this way.
As I arrived back home, I realized that my sense of still being on the boat was with me whenever I would move or turn suddenly. An interesting sensation……..
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