MLA Jr. Harvesters Jackson and Kai Schwab

Jackson Schwab, 11, and his brother Kai, 9, were taught how to lobster by their dad, Donnie Schwab. He, in turn, was taught by his father, who was taught by his father, the late Carl Schwab of Port Clyde. Carl, who passed away in 2024, was a highly regarded fisherman who came to Port Clyde as a teenager. For decades he fished for herring, mackerel, groundfish and later turned to lobster.

Jackson, Kai and Joanna Schwab. MLA photo.

Like their father and grandfather, Jackson and Kai both started hauling on their own (under the watchful eyes of their mother, Joanna) when they were eight.

“My brother and my Dad were going so I decided to go too. I have ten traps now,” Kai said proudly. Jackson has fifty traps, five of which he purchased from Brooks Trap this summer using the proceeds of his lobster landings. The boys haul from a 19-foot Seaway with their mother as crew.

Jackson and Kai feel a sense of excitement each time a trap comes over the rail. “It’s a surprise to see how many are in the trap,” Jackson said. “Plus there are cool creatures in there,” Kai added. “One day we caught a blue lobster and then caught it again in the same trap. Plus we saw a sunfish [Mola mola] last summer.”

They tend their traps from May, when the St. George school lets out, until September, when school starts up again. “We go pretty much every other day in the summer,” said Joanna, who also works as a nurse at PenBay Medical Center in Rockport.

When asked if lobstering is hard work Jackson and Kai quickly nod in agreement. They also agree that it is a good way to make money. “You push through even though it’s hard,” Jackson said. “It’s no good if you don’t make money,” Kai said. They run their traps in and around Port Clyde, as far as the Marshall Point lighthouse, and sell to the Port Clyde Fishermen’s Co-op, which their great-grandfather helped organize.

Jackson thinks he will continue to lobster, at least as a side job, in the future. What he’s really interested in, however, is welding. “I’m learning to weld now at school. Lobstering goes up and down. There’s more money in welding because it’s regular work,” he said. Kai too thinks he might get into welding but keep lobstering in the summer. “I enjoy it!” he said.