162 ABOUT LOBSTERS 



and they are highly successful. In talking with them one 

 is impressed that their success is in no way due to their 

 " book-learning " but in the training of their minds to ques- 

 tion the accepted means and gear for fishing, and their 

 willingness to study the lobster and outsmart him. 



If you can stand the rugged life. 



Lobstering is a rugged life. The summer visitor sees 

 a lobsterman hauling his pots on a warm summer day with 

 little wind and no sea running. It looks to be an ideal way 

 of earning a living. 



But let this same visitor get up before dawn, lug aboard 

 three bushels of stinking fish bait with five gallons of gas 

 and row them out to his vessel. It may be raining and 

 blowing smart. The sea will be rough, and it will be pene- 

 tratingly cold. 



As soon as he has passed the lee of the harbor the 

 visitor will be seasick and oh, so miserable, and glad to take 

 shelter in the cuddy. The lobsterman may not be seasick 

 but he can be miserable too, and he's got to continue most 

 of the day, and darned glad to creep home to a quiet harbor. 



Multiply these miseries for fishing in the colder weather 

 of early spring and late fall, and you test a lobsterman's 

 ruggedness. 



Then consider the man who fishes all winter. He 

 probably doesn't put out oftener than every other day but 

 that is no job for a weakling. Can your hands stand being 

 continuously wet with 40° water even though you wear 

 cotton gloves? Yet it pays, for the scarcity of lobsters in 

 winter nearly doubles the price for your catch. 



If you have the heart to meet discouragement. 



Imagine it, all day out in the cold and only 10 lobsters 

 to show for it — not enough to pay for your gas. You shift 

 the location of your pots, you change your bait, and still no 

 decent catch all week — the lobsters just aren't feeding. 



Then you run into a three-day nor'easter when you 

 can't go out. After the sea calms down you spend two days 



