The Community of Fishing:
“A Lot Has Disappeared”
by Laurie Schreiber
The mid water trawler Starlight changing lines offshore. NMFS has said increasing observer coverage requirements, particularly in catch share programs, have high cost burdens. Increasingly, the use of electronic technology (monitoring and reporting) is perceived as a mechanism to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of data collection. See Expanded Electronic Oversight Weighed. © Photo by Sam Murfitt
TREMONT – Wendell Seavey, a lobster fisherman and author of “Working the Sea: Misadventures, Ghost Stories, and Life Lessons from a Maine Lobsterfisherman,” recently described the fishing method of tub-trawling, which his father practiced.
“Each dory had four tubs of trawl, each trawl had ten lines, and each line was 50 fathoms long. There was a hook every six feet apart,” he said. The location of the trawls were marked by bamboo poles, 6 or 7 feet long, with flags on them.
The tub-trawling method of fishing started around 1850. It was a very dangerous form of fishing, he said.
“The skipper would get the up about 4 o’clock in the morning. The cook had coffee or donuts and muffins, they had a quick snack, and then the vessel let the dories out,” Seavey told an audience during a recent panel session on the fishing way of life, hosted by the Tremont Historical Society.
