Life With A Fisherman

I reached Captain Ben’s house as he was pulling an old, large raft out of his barn. He had a horse tied up to it. “What is this?” I asked. He looked at me with his old smile and replied, “This is how we get our traps out to sea. We are going to rope them to one another and pile them on the raft. Then Salty is going to haul them out.” Now, this was a mission of its own. We had to pull this very heavy raft loaded with traps down to the lagoon and get it into the water. “I hope she still floats!” Captain Ben shouted as he laughed. Now, this raft was about 10-feet long and six-feet wide. It had long planks under it that were angled upward for pulling it. The planks for the floor were all tied with rope and attached with wooden pegs. It was about three-feet high, just high enough to put sealed wooden barrels under it to help it float. Captain said he had built it many years ago and hadn’t seen it since Salty sank. With the help of the horse, we pulled it out of the barn and put four barrels on the top of it. “Now let’s get the traps ready, young Cappy,” the Captain yelled. He grabbed an old wooden rum barrel, about two-feet high. It had a five-foot pole stuck through it with a red flag on its top. We tied a rope to the bottom of the pole. “Space all the traps out,” he said. “Put them about 30 feet from each other.”

So I spread the traps out .We then spread a long rope from the fist trap to the last. At the end of the rope, Captain Ben tied another rum barrel the same as the first. “Now pay attention. I’ll show you only once,” he said. Then we walked from one trap to the other. They were spaced about 30 feet, and we tied another rope from the main rope to the trap. That rope was about 30-feet long also. When we were at the other end, I looked back at what we had done. From one barrel to the other, all spread out, we had tied a trap line. It was amazing, and I’d never seen anything like it. “This is what the trap line looks like under the water,” he said. “The barrels are at each end so we know where they are when we pull them to check for the crawls. Now let’s load them onto the raft.” We slowly pulled the raft from trap to trap with the horse and loaded them on. We stacked them so that when we released them, they would pull one another without tangling. “Now grab that ball of twine and that stinky barrel of bait, I’ll get the bricks loaded. “The bricks?” I thought. I didn’t ask. I just did as I was told.

We were all loaded up and off we went. The horse slowly pulled that old raft down to the lagoon where Salty was tied up. We walked next to the horse all the way to the lagoon. As we reached the water, it was getting late. “Let’s get her tied up to Salty,” the captain said. “Then we will call it a night.”He led the horse right into the lagoon, pulling the raft behind him. The horse was neck high in the water and loving it. The raft was floating. “Let’s tie her to Salty and tie her tight!” he shouted. So we tied the raft real good, about five feet behind my little sailboat named Salty. Then we ran a long rope up to shore and attached it to a stump. “There now, the captain said, “we are all set for first light. If the winds are in our favor, we will set the crawl traps in the morning.” He jumped up on his horse and told me to meet him at first light. And off he went riding up the hill in the bluff to his house.

I walked the shoreline around the water’s edge on the way home. I kept looking back at the raft full of traps tied to Salty. The flags that were attached to the rum barrels were blowing in the wind. Oh what a site it was. On the way home, I looked up the hill and saw Maggie Whitehead. She lived down the trail from us. She was my age, 10 at that time. She was waving, so I waved back , but I kept to myself and had to get home. “Got trapping to do,” I was thinking to myself. She was a redheaded tomboy, you might say. She had a very hard-working family. Her dad, in fact, was a crewmate on my dad’s ship. Not knowing it then, but she became a big part of my life in later years. I liked her from the day I first saw her as a child, but I was always too shy to speak when she was around.

When I got home, Dad was there and asked me what I’d been up to. He was very happy about the smoked heron and told me that he was going out for the big base in the morning. He wanted me to go. I told him that I had crawl trapping to do, and I explained all about the traps that we built. We sat at the dinner table and had a great ham dinner that my mom cooked up. I told Dad that I was meeting with Captain Ben at first light at Salty. “Ay,” he said, “you pay close attention to the old captain, my son. There is none better to teach you the way of the waters.”.Then I asked my dad, “What is a crawl?” He laughed and said, “You’ll see. You’ll see.”Then I told him the tale Captain Ben told me about how he came to this great island, and about the pirates’ battle with his ship Dad replied, “And you can believe every word he tells, Cappy. That old man has been through the torches and is a man’s man. There is none better to be out to sea with, I’ll say that again. There are many men who would give their life to be with him, just to learn the way of the sea from him. I finished my meal and Dad said, “Now off to bed with you. You have a hard day crawl trapping in front of you. Good night, my son.” And off to bed I went.

The night went fast, and before I knew it, I was putting my pants on. Mom handed me two ham sandwiches and out the door I went. “Give one to Ben,” she yelled . I went running to the lagoon as fast as my feet could move. As I reached Salty, the captain was there waiting for me. I remember thinking, “You have to get up very early if you want to be there before him,” and I laughed to myself. “Ay, the winds are with us!” he yelled. “Get in, young Cappy, it’s out to sea we go.” It was a glorious morning, to say the least. The sun was just coming up over the cove, and the winds were in our favor to take us out. “Pull the ropes in and set the sail, young Cappy,” he yelled. And off we went. It was fantastic. The winds grabbed the sail, and Salty was towing the traps. We headed out past the chop that is now known as “East Chop” in Oak Bluffs. We went around the chop, and I could see why it was called the chop. The way the tide goes around that point makes white caps of the waves, and it was a very easy day out there. Captain Ben told me to beware of the points of the island. “They can get very angry. On a bad day out here, they will eat you up like nothing,” he said. And I could see why. As we went around the chop, the waters calmed down. “This is the spot for trapping,” he yelled. “Pull in the sail.” He knew these waters to say the least.

He shouted, “We are in a rock-bottom area with 20 feet under us! Now pull the raft to us!” So I pulled the raft up to Salty, and the captain climbed on it. “Now watch what I do. This is how we set the traps. We have to work quickly once we start.” Captain Ben started by taking a brick and tying three rotten bait fish to it. He then put the bricks with bait into the traps and tied the top down. “This is where you have to be careful not to get tied up in the ropes, young Cappy,” he said. “Keep a knife with you handy at all times and keep it sharp. If ya get tied up in the ropes. the water will take you. If that happens, cut that rope as fast as ye can.” He prepared all the bricks with the bait. “Now we will use the tide to help us release our traps,” he said as he pushed the first rum barrel off the raft. The rum barrel starting to float with the tide, and its rope started going off the raft. As the rope went out, it pulled the first trap into the water. Then another and another … It was a sight to see, all 10 traps went out, then the second rum barrel with its flag. We floated away from the flags. What a great sight it was, two flags blowing in the wind with our traps at the ocean floor. “Pull me back to Salty,” Captain Ben yelled as he looked out at the flags. “Today, you will learn to sail with a raft in toe.” He climbed back into Salty and told me to take us home. “Always watch the shoreline out here, so you know where you are, young Cappy. We will come back out in three days with new bait to check for crawls.

That was the day I learned to sail my little boat. Over the next three days, I spent every minute with the captain listening to his stories. He would talk of the sea, and every night he would point out stars in the black of night, telling me their names and telling a story of each star. I didn’t know it at that time, but he was teaching me to read the sky. He kept telling me that the stars are like the sea: Follow them and they always lead you in the dark of night.

Well three days passed, and it was time to check the traps. I met Captain Ben at Salty. He had a long pole with a hook on it. “This is how ye grab the flag rope,” he said with a smile, and off to the trap line we went. It was a day to remember, We sailed out to the flags with the raft in tow. The sea was flat with very little wind. When we were at the first flag, I could see the rum barrel. Captain Ben yelled, “Hurry, young Cappy, get onto the raft, and as we pass the barrel, hook the rope and don’t let her go.” I quickly pulled the raft in and jumped on . We passed the flag, and I hooked the rope and started pulling it aboard the raft. “Keep the rope neat and free of your feet,” he yelled as he dropped the sail. He then climbed onto the raft with me and watched as I pulled in the rope. I got to the first knot, where the other rope was tied to the first trap. The trap was coming up, and it was very heavy. I did all I could to pull it up. The captain smiled and as the trap was in sight he yelled, “There’s bounty in our box.” We pulled the trap onto the deck of the raft. The captain unhooked the top of the trap and opened it up. He was laughing as he yelled, “Crawls! We have crawls by the plenty!” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The trap was full of lobsters, and I mean full. I shouted, “These are lobsters!” “No, they are crawls!” the captain yelled as he laughed. “And we have plenty in the trap.” They were all four- and five-pounders.

As he took the crawls from the traps, he would look them over, and he would throw some back in the ocean. I asked, “Why are you throwing them back?” “These are females, full of eggs,” he said. And then I learned all about crawls. He showed me the difference between a male and female lobster. “The female’s tail, if you look under it, has wider space between its shells to hold the eggs, and the claws are longer and thinner than the males’. She will carry her eggs there for about seven months before releasing them on the floor of the ocean. And then it takes around seven years for the little ones to grow to about one pound in size. The lobsters that we had trapped where about 35 to 40 years old. The male lobster has a club claw.” That meant that the male lobster has a bigger claw than the female. It’s much wider. Some of the lobsters had very soft shells, and he threw those back. “Their shelling,” he shouted as he threw one back in. And he told me that in the spring of the year, they grow new shells. It takes a few weeks for the new shell to grow under the hard shell and push it off.

(Picture of Female and Male Lobster) Sarahs Art work

“The lobster goes into the mud to do this and comes out with a new, shiny soft shell. It hardens up within a few weeks. This is a dangerous time for the soft shells because the soft shell doesn’t protect them very good from the other fish,” he said.

Well, we ended up with around 100 lobsters, and as we pulled the traps, we re-baited them and sank them to the bottom to catch more crawls. We had two barrels of lobsters on the raft as we set the last trap back into the water, and the captain shouted, “Take her to the hole, young Cappy.” And he pointed toward Woods Hole. It was called “the hole” back then. Now it’s the famous Woods Hole of the Cape. We sailed Salty to the hole and sold the lobsters at the fisherman’s market. The captain split the money with me, saying, “Half the bounty is yours, young Cappy.” I was so excited; it was the first time I’d ever made any money. It wasn’t a lot of money, but back then it seemed like a lot.

“Let’s go to the trading post,” the captain shouted, and off to the trading post we went. Captain Ben looked into my eyes and said, “Young Cappy, you are now a fisherman, and us fishermen take care of each other. We take care of the needs of our islanders. Do what you wish with your bounty, but I’m buying things that are needed on the island. So we went in the post and purchased candles and cloth for making clothes, and of course a bunch of hard candy. Then Captain Ben said, “Your mom needs salt for smoking. Get a bunch of salt. I remember thinking about how I thought the captain was a mean, old man a few weeks before getting to know him. Boy was I wrong about that . Well, back to Martha’s Vineyard we went. The winds were picking up, and we sailed back with four-foot waves that where breaking over the bow. I learned to ride the waves. On the way back I asked, “Why do you call lobsters crawls?” He started laughing and told me that when he first landed on the island, he could walk down the beach on the north shore and lobsters were everywhere in knee-deep water. “Just crawling around my feet as I was shore fishing,” he said. “I’ve called them crawls since my first days here.” Over the next two months, we made another 40 traps, giving us a total of 50, and we trapped crawls all summer. By the end of that summer, I was a lobsterman. Captain Ben said I was the best lobsterman that he had ever seen.