August 12, 2025

 

Everyone was out fishing yesterday morning. I was awakened at 5:30 AM by the wheezing and rumbling of a lobster boat’s engine. It was a small one person boat – the kind that are quickly disappearing here abouts. He was in the process of spooling out approximately 80 to 100 feet of gill net behind the boat as he drove in a tight circle. These boats remind me of the small British sport cars of the 70’s in their maneuverability.

 

Once the net was completely in the water and floating free, he circled clockwise repeatedly. This, I figured, was driving the fish’s gills into the shear net. After a pause the hauling began. The net was full of pogies and as the lobsterman pulled the net into the boat he grunted and groaned. Periodically he stopped and talked to himself in short outburst. My thought was each fish meant another dollar towards his daughter’s college tuition. But I suppose it could be his son or maybe both.

 

With the net fully recovered he separated the fish’s gills from the net and commenced the process over again. This time he ventured into shallower and shallower water. About this time, we were heading for the dock in our dinghy and saw a solitary figure in another dinghy racing out to him. A short conversation ensued with the fisher apologizing for disturbing the anchorage as he slowly exited the harbor.

 

Without the disturbance, the rest of the fishers became apparent. A seal surfaced; a cormorant popped up and swallowed a fish about half its size; gulls skimmed the water’s surface for breakfast; an osprey arrived, plunged and left with a wiggling fish perfectly aligned in its talons.

 

But the stars of the show were the artic terns. I had not noticed their toddlers stationed on three mooring balls to the west of us. Their scratchy high pitch pleading for sustenance was annoyingly cute. The sleek parents crashed into the water again and again, successful a third of the time. The catch was a two inch long sliver of a fish whose scales gleamed in the morning sun. 

 

While in flight they tempted the chicks with the fish. As I saw it the chicks needed to pull the morsal out of the parent’s beak. If not it moved on to another one of the three siblings balancing on the large white balls. 

 

Humans, other than lobstermen, have no interest in the abundant pogies. In the 13 years we have been plying these waters, I have barely seen a fishing pole let alone a sports fishing boat.

 

The fishing reached a crescendo at 9AM and then settled into a steady cadence. We had breakfast and then decided if we should decide to have an agenda or not for the day. If the boats around us are leaving, now is the time their anchors start to racket up. The local eagles do a fly by as the wind begins to fill in. It’s summer here in Maine, at least for the next week and then . . .

NE Harbor, Maine