The North Atlantic is home to some of the most successful fishing grounds in U.S. waters. But the small boat lobstermen and fishermen who’ve fished them for generations, called dayboat fishermen, are dwindling quickly. They must now contend with climate change, low fish populations, governmental regulation and volatile markets.
Between the year 2000 and 2020, over 70% of the cod fishermen in the area left the industry. And as the Gulf of Maine warms, lobsters push north toward cooler waters, leaving some New England lobstermen high and dry.
All that remains between these fishermen and their financial demise, is the steadfastness and stubbornness that has so often defined the spirit of New England fishermen. For them, it’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. There is no where else for them to turn. Only time will tell whether this is just a stretch of rough seas or the end of an era for the storied dayboat fishermen of the Northeast.
Pictured: Chatham Harbor, Mass., seen from inside the wheelhouse of the DAWN-T fishing vessel. The DAWN-T is one of many fishing vessels partnering with NOAA to measure water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, one of the worlds fastest warming bodies of water on earth. Some fishermen and lobstermen find ways to subsidize their income, including partnering with research entities who pay or can lift certain restrictions on the boats.
Caroline Howlett secures lobster traps lined with bait onto the back of the lobster boat, Pot Luck, on Cape Cod Bay. It is a line of work fraught with danger, and with no guarantees of good pay. Howlett is one of the few younger people in the region to find the work worth her while. For her and her boyfriend, Toby Mason, who operates the Pot Luck, how long they’ll find this work suitable, they do not know.
Flounder, conch, crabs and other catch sit on Tim Barrett’s deck after being hauled from waters off the coast of Cape Cod. The ground fish species that once supported hundreds of families, such as flounder and cod, can now only support a fraction of the fishermen it used to.
Peter Mason hauls up a nearly empty lobster trap as his son Toby Mason, left, and Toby’s girlfriend, Caroline Howlett, watch from the wheelhouse behind. There is an art and a science to trapping lobsters. But despite generations of tracking lobster breeding grounds, and the science of sonar and data collection, there are no guarantees that there will be any lobster in a trap when it is hauled to the surface.
The Port of Gloucester in Massachusetts braces for a fall Nor’easter with gale force winds that keep the entire fleet from fishing.
Garry Sandborn looks out at the water while fastening his lobster bib pants as the tail end of a nor’easter moves through Gloucester, Mass. As soon as the weather clears, Sandborn and his crew will make their way to the fishing grounds as quickly as possible to make up for lost time in the storm.
Inside Peter Mason’s garage turned workshop as he builds his own lobster pots in Marshfield, Mass. By making his own traps, Mason stands to save at least a third of the cost on each trap. As off-the-boat lobster prices continue to fall, every penny counts. Mason, like many other fishermen, voted for President Trump in the 2016 election after promises were made to ease the tight restrictions on fishing grounds in U.S. waters. No such changes have been made to restrictions in the area where Mason works.
As dawn breaks over Boston Harbor, a lone employee at the Boston Fish Pier waits to offload larger boats arriving from multi-day trips in deeper waters. The money is no longer in the small boats that have been the foundation of commercial fishing in New England for centuries. Instead, companies that own several large boats outfitted for weeks at sea, as well as the influx of cheaper fish products from international fish farms, are replacing the small boat operators at a staggering rate.
Lobstermen Cara Delaney stacks lobster traps on the back of the lobster boat, Pot Luck, as the sun begins to peek over the horizon on Cape Cod Bay.
The lobster boat, Pot Luck, is seen from the deck of its sister boat, the Kestrel, on a chilly January morning in Cape Cod Bay. Peter Mason’s father owns and operates the Pot Luck, but since injuring his hip, his grandson, Toby Mason, has taken over the daily operation.
With a tattoo of a dagger on his thumb and a gentle grasp on the wheel, Peter Mason steers the Kestrel through Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth to be dry docked for painting during the lobster closure period. Wind whipped skin and tattoos are a common sight on fishing boats. The effects of life at sea and fishing culture can be seen on the hands and faces of many New England fishermen. This is the last time Mason will navigate these waters on his boat until maintenance is complete. It will be a few months until he is allowed to set traps again.
A boot sticks out of a tangled mess of fishing net on the back of a truck as the crew of the DAWN-T remove an old net to be replaced with a new one. Each net, line, cage and countless other products are regulated for their build and quality in order to meet the demands of fishermen and protect the environment.
Tim Barrett walks past empty slips as he leaves his boat in Green Harbor, Mass. With the current state of the groundfish populations and subsequent regulations, and a two month winter closure for lobstermen to protect Right Whale calving, many fishermen now dry dock their boats during the winter because the costs outweigh the benefits of fishing.
Tim Barrett gazes out over the horizon as the summer sun rises above Nantucket Sound. Trawling alone means awaking in the dead of night, hours on end of hard work and also hours with no one on board to talk to. But the unobstructed view of a rising sun over the vast body of water is not something most people get to witness during their workday.
Lobstermen Cara Delaney runs lobster traps to the back of the lobster boat, Pot Luck, on Cape Cod Bay. Each lobster pot is weighted down to make it stays on the ocean floor, making moving them on the boat even more strenuous.
Game night at the Delaney home in Plymouth with Cara, her son, Riley, and daughter, Isabella.
The lobster boat, Golden Girl, returns to Green Harbor at night through a dense fog in Marshfield, Mass. One of the biggest dangers of fishing in New England is one of the most obvious, weather and sea conditions. The harbor is often engulfed in fog.
John Haviland, of Marshfield, Mass., loads some of the last lobster traps of the season onto his truck before state closures restrict him from lobstering from February through May. When concerns were raised about the endangered North Atlantic right whales being entangled in buoy lines, the state enacted a ban on lobstering during the whale’s foraging season. For any lobstermen holding permits in the designated ban area, a quarter of their yearly income now must be made elsewhere.
Lobsterman Phil Mason’s garage in Marshfield, Mass., is adorned with a lobster flag waving in the early morning wind.
Fishermen Jamie Whittaker, left, and Tim Barrett, share a drink at the Haddad’s Ocean Cafe in Green Harbor, Mass. Haddad’s Bar used to be a fisherman’s hangout. Now it has transformed into more of a sports bar for locals and tourists. Some fishermen, such as Whittaker and Barrett, still find themselves stopping in for a drink.
Early in the morning before leaving for Green Harbor, Delaney helps her daughter, Bella, get ready for school. By 5:30 a.m., everyone in the household is getting up and going. Depending on the day, Delaney may leave for Green Harbor before her kids leave for school. The sun is often the last thing to make a morning appearance in a fishing household.
Tim Barrett carries a piece of wood to be used as deck replacement while working in the boat yard on Christmas Eve. With low quotas and low market prices, Barrett finds work on land more financially rewarding than fishing in the winter. Repairing boats also comes with fewer risks than being alone on the water, especially in the frigid winter seas. However successful working on land may be, Barrett does it as a reaction to not being able to turn a decent profit fishing during these months. Along with the other fishermen and scallopers, Tim Barrett works to prepare the scallop boat, Justice, with a new net and new cable instead of fishing on his own boat. Barrett also works as a deckhand on research vessels through the University of Massachusetts School of Marine Science and Technology. It keeps him working on the ocean without the cost of operating the Odessa.
A gull narrowly escapes the spray from a crashing wave during a Nor'easter along the coast of East Gloucester, Mass. This region of the North Atlantic is known for severe weather and has been used as the backdrop for stories such as “The Perfect Storm.”
Lobsterman Peter Mason, of Plymouth, Mass., inspects a female lobster for eggs and marks her tail flipper with a v-notch. This marking signifies to Mason, and to other lobstermen that find her in their trap, the cage that lobsters are caught with (also called a lobster pot), that she is a breeding female and not to be kept but returned into the ocean. This notch will remain on her through several molts. This is a way for lobstermen to protect future generations of lobster.
Lobstermen Cara Delaney and Peter Mason sell freshly caught lobster after arriving in Plymouth in the late morning. Using Facebook, Delaney and Mason have been able to reach customers directly, and in doing so, retain the value of lobster that has dropped significantly when selling to wholesalers.
Peter Mason steers the lobster boat, Pot Luck, while he and his girlfriend rest between hauling lobster traps on Cape Cod Bay. Younger generations of lobstermen are few and far between compared to years past, and Mason isn’t sure how long he’ll follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps.
A “Make America Great Again” hat sits alongside the catch and bycatch from Tim Barrett’s morning trawl. Man-made products, such as this hat, are often found in nets coming up from the ocean floor. Barrett believes the ground fisheries are almost a lost cause for him. He isn’t sure there is a future in it for any small boat owners in New England. What he is sure of is how much he enjoys being a part of it. “To be harvesting food for the people around me is a great sense of pride,” he said.
A lobster perched on the side of the Pot Luck with claws open and ready to defend itself.
Fisherman Tim Barrett steers his fishing boat, Odessa, with his foot while trawling the waters near Nantucket Sound for conch and flounder. Fishing has an allure to outsiders that fishermen like Barrett will acknowledge, joking that few who try will succeed at it. While not everyone has what it takes, what is universal are the dangers. Barrett survived an unlikely tornado in his boat off of Cape Cod in July of 2019. Just after Thanksgiving that year, a scallop boat capsized about 25 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard, all but one crewmen were lost. In April of 2020, a seasoned dayboat fisherman was lost at sea while returning to port in Gloucester. The ocean is an unforgiving place. For Barrett, fishing alone is a risk, but one would never know it as he tools around Nantucket Sound, foot on wheel.
Lobsterman Peter Mason and his son, Toby Mason, tune their radio to find music to listen to as they begin to set and haul lobster pots on their lobster boat, Pot Luck, while the sun starts to rise above the horizon.
Scott Leddin, of Pembroke, Mass., hoists a container of freshly caught lobster from his boat onto the Green Harbor town pier in Marshfield, Mass.
Cara Delaney, a sternman on the lobster boat, Kestrel, stacks an empty trap after pulling it from Cape Cod Bay. Since 2016, the bay has been ordered closed from lobstering between February and April by NOAA to protect the endangered Right Whale from entanglements during calving season. For lobstermen, this means January is their last chance to earn income to hold them over until Spring.
Fisherman Tim Barrett sifts through his catch looking for species that he can still keep as part of his yearly quota. Fisherman can only catch a certain amount of poundage each year per species of fish, often meaning they have to lease others’ quota or save some of their quota to fish later in the year when prices are better or finances demand it.
Jonathon Dauphinee, right, talks with his son, Jared, as he washes down his lobster boat, Amanda Page. What lobstering means to Jonathon and his generation has changed for Jared’s generation. Instead of lobstering, Jared is leaning toward another line of work after high school and considering attending a trade school instead of lobstering.
From left, Toby Mason, his dog, Huey, father, Peter Mason, girlfriend, Caroline Howlett, and sternman Cara Delaney, rest and prep before setting a new line of lobster traps in Cape Cod Bay.
Cara Delaney lines traps with bait on the deck of the lobster boat, Pot Luck, as the sun just starts to rise above the horizon. Despite lobster prices off the boat only fetching half of what they used to, combined with regulations and bans that limit the ability to catch lobster, there is no hesitation by Delaney, or anyone else aboard the Pot Luck, to wake up long before the sun in order to continue on with the work that they love.