Chill Day - August 1, Saturday

Today, i slept in until 9:30 A.M. This is my chill day until we go back out to work and haul on Monday. I got up, and i just went down and started to watch some shows, and play the Xbox because that's really fun. I got to make some mac-&-cheese for lunch! That was very delicious! Uncle Arthur made me dinner, it was like a chicken patty and curly fries! Then i went back to play Xbox. 

To-marrow, we are going to go and fill bait bags so that we don't have to do that tomorrow when we are hauling traps!

Yesterday at 6 P.M, Me and Uncle Art went to Applebee's for dinner. I got a corn dog, and a caezer sallad, and he got steak and mashed potatoes. We both got lemonade. After that, we went to see Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation! IT WAS AMAZING! It was so awesome! I recommend go seeing it!

- 8:54 P.M. - August 1, Saturday

2nd Day - Thursday, August 30

Today, i had my 2nd day as a lobster man. Yesterday, i spent my time filling bait bags with bait so that we would not have to do that while we were hauling lobster traps. Today on the boat, we would haul traps.

Every time that we hauled a trap, we needed to do 3 things to it before we could send it back down to the bottom.

1. We had to take the old bait bag out of the trap, and empty the dead fish from it off of the side of the boat, so that we could reuse the bait bags. (we reuse the bait bags)
2. We had to take the lobsters out of the trap, and see how many that we could keep. (Some lobsters are to small to legally keep, so we measure them)
3. We needed to put a new bait bag in the trap by running a string through the middle of it, and fastening the string to either sides of the trap so that it would stay.

For one lobster trap, sometimes we get 3 lobsters, and sometimes we get like 7-8. The most lobsters that we got in one trap today, was 11 lobsters! Every-time that we haul a trap, we put a new bait bag inside of it, and since we already had made the bait bags yesterday, we didn't have to fill them as we were going today. Each lobster trap that we haul, i usually take out the old bait bag, and put a new bait bag in. My Uncle Arthur, is the one, who takes out the lobster and sets them into boxes for me to band.

After each trap that we haul, i usually have lobsters to band. There is this cool tool, that you put it around a rubber band, and it stretches out the rubber band, so that i can band the lobster with only my right hand, and hold the lobster with my left hand. (we don't use regular rubber-bands, we use special black ones that are smaller). I have to cross the lobsters claws and hold it a certain way so that the lobster cant clamp my fingers off! Lobsters have 1 claw that is used for grabbing things (usually its right claw) and another claw used for crushing things (usually left claw).

Here is a picture of a bait bag. It has a sealed bottom, and a top which can be opened and then closed again by tightening the string. We put the fish inside of the bait bag, and then we tie the top of the bag shut. 

The lobster trap, is designed so that when the lobsters enter it, they cant get out. The lobsters enter the 2 holes on the left side of the picture, where the bait bag is, then, they can eat the bait, and then they go to the right where they stay until we haul the trap up. Sometimes, there are crabs in the cages, so we just toss them back in the water. 

Older lobster traps, were curved, and looked like this.

We would band the lobsters with this tool. It would be pulled shut by a rubber band, and i would put a rubber band around the ends of it, and open it and it would open the rubber band so that i could put the rubber band on the lobsters claws. The rubber bands were easy to put on, because they were so small, but they were really strong.

At the end of the day, i had banded 840 LBS. of lobster, and i was working from 5 A.M. to 3 P.M. I was so happy to go home and rest.

-7/30/15 - Tuesday