MLA Junior Harvester Tommy Dube

Tommy Dube, 11, likes to fish, though it’s sometimes hard to get him to admit it. But his actions speak louder than words. Dube has gone lobstering with his father Seth since he was a baby. Today he lobsters with Seth all summer, then after school or on the weekends during the year. He rides his bike down to the pier in Camp Ellis to help out whomever might need help that day — a tuna boat, a shark fisherman, other lobstermen. He goes striper fishing, ice fishing, just about any fishing that’s available.

Tommy Dube, 11

His father, lobsterman Seth Dube, recalled Tommy’s first days on the boat. “He was born in March. He was on the boat in May. I didn’t have any childcare so I would fasten him in his car seat to the engine box. When he woke up, I’d give him a bottle,” he said.

Learning to lobster is not a quick lesson. In Tommy’s case he learned by watching his father. He hung out with Seth as he worked on his traps in the spring. He watched him run the hauler on the boat. He studied how he handled the traps on the boat or rebaited them. By the time he was 5, he could run the hauler for his father.

There have been good and bad days in Tommy’s lobstering career. The bad day: “I burned my elbow on the exhaust pipe,” he said. The good day? “I got around 45, 50 pounds of lobster from my ten traps.” Now he’s setting fifty traps and feeling happy about the money he’s saved, which is all accounted for in his book.

The Dube family has been fishing a long time, according to Seth. “We’re the ninth and tenth generation of fishermen in my family,” he said. “We fished in Port Clyde a long time ago. Then my great great grandfather, who was a minister, came down to Goodwins Mills [in Lyman] to be the minster here.”

Tommy and his father have another boat to put in the water. The two spent the past year fixing up a derelict 21-foot Repco once fished by a Biddeford Pool lobsterman which had spent too many years resting in the man’s woods. The fiberglass boat needed extensive repairs, which Seth taught his son how to do. Tommy learned to use a jigsaw to cut out all the windows as well as other tools needed to bring the boat back into shape. Now the Sea Hunt is ready to hit the water. “I have a new boat,” Tommy said.