Page 2 - JULY2024

Page 2
Community
LOBSTERMEN
continued from page 1
ologist Stephen Polumbi kindly portrays the lobster’s appearance as one of” beautiful ugliness”.
Lobster Life
Lobsters can live for many years. They can grow (rarely) to be 40-plus pounds. They com- municate with one another with raspy sounds and physical con- tact. They hunt for prey with their antennae and grasp the prey with their two great claws. Lobsters are sexual creatures with their own mating rituals. Females instigate the courtship by approaching the males and “strip” for them by molting their exoskeletons. The female seeks out large males (size ap- parently matters). As the pair becomes intimate, the female sprays urine on the male from antennal glands located near her eyes. The urine makes the male receptive, and he deposits a semen “package” on his mate’s stomach. They role around cop- ulating, and the female releases a multitude of eggs that receive the
NEWFOUNDLAKELIFE.COM
July 2024
semen. Soon, a new generation of lobsters is born. The anat- omy and the behavior of these ancient crustaceans may seem somewhat bizarre to us, but we should keep in mind the song- writer Ray Stevens’s wonderful refrain, “Everything is beautiful in its own way.”
In spite of their “ugly” ap- pearance and somewhat bizarre mating ritual, lobsters are trea- sured by our species. The human palate yearns for boiled lobster, lobster rolls, lobster thermidor, and a multitude of other lob- ster delectations. Our appetite for lobster is underscored by the fact that well over 100,000,000 pounds of lobsters were caught off the New England coast last year. The quest for the crus- tacean is so inviting that it has perked the interest and focused the energy of two Newfound area men, Steve Means of Bristol and Mike Moore of Alexandria.
Taking a break one day or two a week from their contract- ing work, Steve and Mike trek from the Newfound area to Rye Harbor. These trips begin in June and last into early Fall. This
is the optimum season for lob- stering. It is called the “soft shell season”. (The quarry is molting.)
With the 95-mile jaunt behind them, Steve and Mike prepare
change. They are now mariners, the Newfound Lake lobstermen. On board, the two men take turns alternating the many tasks. Having worked together for sev- eral years the division of labor is second nature. For this outing, Steve (a husky, snowy-haired, bearded gentleman with a ready smile) pilots the Sea Fox, keeping his eyes on boat traffic as well as the radar and sonar images. His working partner, Mike (younger, darker, and more sinewy than Steve), busies himself, setting bait in the traps. On this hunt, be- cause the men will return to the Newfound area briefly before re- trieving the newly sunken traps, a unique bait is set in the trap chamber called the “kitchen”. That durable enticement is pig hide! The hide becomes rubbery in the trap, causing the lobster to spend countless hours “chewing” the bait and deferring its attempt
to escape its confinement.
With new traps set, it’s time to retrieve the pots set earlier. An electric hoist is employed to raise the traps with their poten- tial savory cuisine. On this out- ing, Mike will measure the catch
to make sure it is of legal size, which is 3.25 inches from the eyes to the end of the carapace (hard shell exoskeleton). Today several dozen meet the criteria. The number of lobsters overload the shipboard cooler, so Steve and Mike employ floatable crates attached to the Sea Fox to hold the lobsters as they return to the harbor.
Homeward bound, Steve and Mike begin to talk about the work awaiting them near Newfound Lake. The contracted tasks include carpentry, masonry, plumbing as well as landscaping and appliance installation. How- ever, as they approach the coast- line and watch the setting sun they settle into a quiet repose, a moment to feel fully the roll of the North Atlantic’s waves and reflect on their encounter with but one of the myriad expres- sions of life that inhabit the more tranquil depths that stir in silence below the great ocean’s restless surface.
Check out Steve’s page on Facebook. facebook.com, search Steven Means.
Mike Moore with the quarry
the lobstering tools, including their distinctive orange and yel- low buoys and, of course, the traps, called pots. They board Steve’s 25-foot Grady White boat, the Sea Fox. It’s an impres- sive watercraft propelled by twin 150-horsepower engines capable of accelerating the watercraft to 30 mph. The landlubber build- ing contractors experience a sea