We hauled our pots on Saturday afternoon.
They’d only been in the water since Thursday — about 2 full days — this time with the tested bait of champions, salted herring. With all ten traps in the water, we hauled 25 lobsters, 9 of which were keepers.
Most measured in only a little bit over the minimum 3.25 inch carapace, but a couple were big ones, 4 inches or so. We estimate the haul averaged about a pound and an eighth per trap — that’s about as good as the commercial lobstermen do, or so we’ve heard.
Here I am hauling the final trap of the day.
There had been several days of heavy rains and the water was brown and muddy — we wondered if this could have had something to do with our good fortune? Don’t know, but whatever the reason I hope this won’t prove to be the aberration. We may well recoup our costs sooner than we’d thought.
Also noteworthy was a GInormous crab, probably the biggest crab anyone had ever seen. Its claws were thick and 
strong, like popeye forearms, and it was very frisky, climbing to the top of the bucket, apparently determined to avoid its fate…
Also of note: we hauled one large lobster who was missing its crusher, one of its walking legs and the antenna, all on the same side — probably lost in a lobster rumble. Its missing parts had started to regenerate, and dangling, limp and 
lifeless, like a red gummi appendage, was a new little claw. No shell, no jointage, no definition, just slimy red, limp and gummi. So strange. I was troubled by this for a while.
Unfortunately, A. videoed my reaction to discovering the mutant regenerating crusher claw in my trap, and now there is evidence of my uncool that for the sake of the journalistic integrity of this project I am compelled to display here.
I’m clearly in a state of awe and admiration for mother nature in all her glory. I think I say the words “grossest thing ever” four or five times.
the haulress
the long hauler
