MLA Jr Harvester: Ezra Alley

Ezra Alley is a cheerful young man. The Jonesport lobsterman, 12, started lobstering with his father Jason when he was a small child, “as young as I know,” he said. It’s a line of work that runs in the family, from his grandfather, Charles Alley, who fished into his 80s, to his father and his brother Adin and now himself. “I’ve never gotten seasick in my life,” he said proudly.

Ezra Alley. Photo by J. Alley.

Ezra fishes with his father on the “big boat," filling bait pockets, notching and banding the lobsters. Afterward the two will go haul Ezra’s ten to twelve traps aboard his 16-foot boat, Urine Trouble. He sets his traps usually around the middle of summer and begins to bring them in during October.

The ground he fishes is mostly mud bottom. “At the end of the day me and my dad look like we’ve been clamming!” he said. Lobstering takes him into an environment that is always changing, with unusual creatures to be found. “My dad caught a thresher shark in his traps one time. The jaw is right here in the living room,” he said.

Learning to lobster is an incremental process for most young people, including Ezra. He remembers the real pleasure he felt when he got to drive the boat by himself and now can manage the heavy traps almost by himself. With the good experiences, of course, there are also those that you really don’t want to repeat.

“Last year we were hauling and it was snowing. We were using frozen rockfish.

We got some and put it in the bait box. It was just a big frozen hunk shaped like a box. I wanted to get them apart and one of the spikes cut into my gloves. They were the only ones on the boat not wet. I got a bunch of bait juice in them and had that in my gloves all day,” Ezra said.

During the school year, Ezra plays flag football, soccer and basketball. He also keeps an annual tradition: he makes a miniature lobster trap for his homeroom teacher. “It’s about 5 inches by 9 inches. I use a busted trap to make it,” he explained.

Ezra saves the money he makes each season but also spends it on what he calls “stupid stuff.” He likes lobstering but also may explore another career when he is older. “I might go to [the Maine] warden school and study wildlife science,” he said.