A Tip of the Hat –
Peter K. Prybot, Remembered

by Brenda Tredwell

Peter Prybot in his other element - photography. Here he records the workings of the New England Fisheries Management Council. Just one of hundreds of fisheries meetings he attended over the years. ©Photo by Sam Murfitt

Bill Lee cut the heavy diesel engine of Ocean Reporter to talk over his cell phone. He was coming into the wharf at Pigeon Cove in Rockport, Mass., alongside Special K, Lady Elaine, Lisa & Andrew, Terminator, Marina Rose. Lee runs through a fleet inventory, I complete it silently… Black Pearl, Annemarie, Snow Squall, Lucky Strike, Jenny R., Scrimshaw, After 5, Flying Finn…

“Probably,” sighed Lee, “The biggest thing to Peter was fishing. Always a smile, always – hello. Always in a small boat fishing. No matter what, you looked up, there he was, working the shoreline.”

Sunday, April 3, Peter Prybot was tending traps in his 22' open hull skiff, October Sky III. It was unusual for him to be inshore much later than noon. Winds recorded on the Harbormaster’s reports were NW, at 15 - 20 mph. It was sunny, and 50 degrees.

Bob Morris III, who was in the area aboard Bob senior’s 30' Spirit, spotted Prybot’s skiff, with nobody on board, caught up near outer Avery’s Ledge. Morris switched onto VHF Channel 16 and radioed Rockport Harbormaster Scott Story. It was around 3 p.m.

“3:05,” corrected Harbormaster Story. The past week had taken its toll.

Approximately 1.8 miles offshore, waters around Avery’s are dicey. “Surrounded with rocks, treacherous,” said Story, who described offshore conditions for April 3 as fairly rough. “Initially, there was no sign,” Story continued, “About three minutes later, Morris found Peter, at which point I asked him if it was safe to get into where Peter was.” Morris stood by while Story notified Rockport police and the Coast Guard—simultaneously, a phone in each hand. The Coast Guard determined Prybot was entangled in ground lines, connecting traps set in a string – Prybot was likely pulled overboard as he was putting out his trawl lines.

Prybot was an advocate for the industry, a writer, scientist, photographer and historian. He worked for Commercial Fisheries News, wrote the “Ebb and Flow” column for the Gloucester Daily Times, and wrote the books: Lobster-ing Off Cape Ann (2006) and White-Tipped Orange Masts, which evolved from his thesis work in 1970. Born in Boston on March 14, 1948, and raised in Lanesville, Peter was the son of the late Eleanor T. and Roman J. Prybot. He graduated from Gloucester High School in 1966. “Peter was always a gentleman,” remembers Gloucester fisherman, Lyle Chamber- lain, a former classmate. Wages earned lobstering paid for Prybot’s education at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Marine Fisheries Biology. Peter married Anne Medico, of Rockport. Their son, Tom, is 22 years old.

Jason Polisson, who fishes Rhumboogie out of Gloucester joked, “The ‘Ebb and Flow” column always took the idiots in the industry and made them look good. Peter always saw the best in everybody.” Prybot was five years older than Polisson. “As kids,” he said, “Peter was always pushing a wheelbarrow full of rope and gas… he’d hop on his bike, one hand on the handlebars, a lobster trap in the other..” The family attended Sacred Heart Church in Lanesville. Polisson explained, “Peter’s father came from Poland. He was an interior painter and designer for churches, probably one of the last to be schooled in the trade. Peter helped him out. After studying marine biology, Peter put a couple of summers in at the U-Mass lab in Cat Cove—it wasn’t his thing, he wanted to be in a boat. We’d catch weird fish and bring them to Peter, Trigger fish, weird seaweed. If he was stumped and couldn’t identify it, he’d consult Bigelow & Schroeder (authors of Fishes of the Gulf of Maine), and give an answer next day. When he got his teaching certificate, we laughed – how many erasers did the kids throw at you today? But he’d bring in traps and buoys to 5th graders.”

“Every fisherman in the harbor had beautiful photos Peter took of their boats. He’d pull his skiff alongside, and hand you a framed photograph. He’d write and investigate everything. Shrimp, groundfish… He’d call you when you were fishing and ask ‘what time are you coming in? I’ve got to take a picture of the shrimp’ He’d go to George’s Bank, researching articles.” said Polisson.

“Right now, with trap limits, certain days you can fish… congressmen, scientists and environmentalists infiltrating the industry… if they put a little common sense back into it, with the way fishing is right now, if you don’t live it, you don’t understand it. And even then, you don’t understand it.”

Off the top of his head, Polisson outlined Prybot’s fishing career. “He started out with a 14-foot Amesbury skiff …then a 16’ then he had a big, 40’ Novi boat Machu Pichu. Peter’s brother, John, was in the Peace Corps. Peter traveled to the places John was, Zimbabwe, South America, so that’s how he named Machu Pichu. Peter tried trawling, didn’t like it, so he went back to a smaller boats. Years ago, Peter worked aboard Judith Lee Rose, a 112-120-foot boat, making 14-day trips to Newfoundland.”

“Peter was a big, rugged individual. Strong as a bull. If you ever see a picture of him, look at his hands. They‘re like baseball gloves. He was first on the water, summer or winter. He’d be in by noon, get bait, get ready for tomorrow. He’d go in open skiffs. If it was 10 or 20 degrees, he’d say, ‘It ain’t that bad,’ he’d just go. At 63 (years old) he’d still get aboard that foolish skiff… all you could see from the wharf on a frigid day was his head going by, above the sea smoke.”

There was a lag, then Polisson said, “He fished because he loved it—and because he was a nut.”

Peter was generous explaining technology or fisheries regulations to other writers.

He was excellent at making things understandable to everyone, because his writing was about getting the message about fishing to everyone, in simple terms.

Peter hosted Lanesville’s 4th of July celebrations where, after the traditionally hell-raising parade down Washington Street – costumed celebrants marched to the raspy buzz of a kazoo, tweaking out a repetitive, snarky, fly-in-your-ear kind of taunt…Everyone grabbed hamburgers marching through his yard to the end of the Lane's Cove breakwater and planted a tattered flag while the bonfire crackled. In Lanesville, where the quarries are, you hop out of wood fired saunas into holes, cut into February’s ice, to cool off. It’s a great community. It was Peter’s home.

Mortillaro’s Lobster bought seafood from Prybot for decades. Vince Mortillaro met Prybot, in 1975. His father Mike, now deceased, bought mackerel from Prybot when he gill-netted. “Periwinkles, seaweed, urchins, Peter did it all,” said Vince. “He’d go downstairs, weigh his lobster. He’d always come upstairs to the office.”

Mortillaro’s worked on marketing seaweed with Prybot. Vince mentioned that Tom Prybot wrote a really good memoir about Peter, his dad, on-line, at wickedlocal.com. For 47 years, Prybot lobstered year-round. While he worked alone, without advanced hauling equipment, Bill Lee summarized things. “With regulations the way they are, you’re given only so many days, so many windows, to fish. You know Peter was careful, things go wrong, that‘s why fishing is the second most dangerous occupation. There were 2-, 3-, or 4-man crews dragging, now a lot of guys are fishing alone.” Lee counted off tragedies in New Bedford and Gloucester. “That gear’s going off the stern at 8 knots…it’s unstoppable…. Things happen so God-damned fast. Peter…of all people. Quite a shock. It’s a reminder. Damn. Tip your hat to him: He died at his job, he died doing exactly what he wanted to be doing. Going by the breakwater, you tip your hat.”