MLA Junior Harvester: Tommy Werner

Most eleven-year-old boys lead a full life. There’s going to school, homework, chores around the house, hockey practice in the winter, and of course, hanging out with friends. For Tommy Werner of Cape Elizabeth, his busy schedule includes tending his ten lobster traps on Peaks Island with his father, Thom Werner.

Tommy Werner.

Tommy learned to lobster from Thom, a Cape Elizabeth lobsterman who owns and operates the Island Lobster Co. restaurant with his wife, Peaks Island native Katie Werner.

“I picked it up from my dad. He brought a lot of lobsters home and we would eat them,” Tommy said. When he was eight, he started going out with his father and hasn’t looked back. “I like being on the boat. I like catching the lobster and being with my dad.”

He grew used to the waves and the occasionally rough water out towards Ram Island. And he felt the pain that so many people do when handling lobsters. “I got bitten by lobsters a couple of times. That was not fun,” he said.

Thom taught his son both the routine of lobstering and the regulations that apply to it. The two go out in their 19-foot Pointer KatO to haul Tommy’s ten traps around Peaks Island, with Tommy baiting, banding and measuring the lobsters in each trap. This summer was a good one. “I did really well, my best so far. I had three to four pounds per trap,” he said. He knows the legal minimum and maximum sizes for a legal lobster and to V-notch any female found with eggs.

He’s also learned a lot by observation, for example, that lobsters in his area, particularly those bearing eggs, are leery of traps in early summer. Come late summer, however, the lobsters are more likely to enter his traps for the bait.

His friend Cooper and cousin Joseph also fish off Peaks Island. The three are in friendly competition, like Maine lobstermen of every age. Tommy recognizes that lobstering is hard work. “I want to keep doing this. With more traps though it will be harder.” But right now, “lobstering is fun,” he said.