Fishing

At 27, Joshua Joyce is a seasoned lobsterman who has seen big changes in the industry.

“It is a lot of work, but it pays off,’’ Joyce said. “It is something of a gamble.”

Estimating that he is probably related to more than half the 360 inhabitants on Swan’s Island, Joyce traces his ancestry back to the infamous “King David” Smith and his fabled 27 children.

With a long history of boat-builders, fish-draggers and lobstermen in his family, Joyce received his first skiff and five traps from his father when he turned five years of age. During high school, he would hand-haul 150 traps from his “little Horse Johnson” outboard, setting his hauling record once by working 60-70 traps in an hour so he could make a ferry.

Joyce’s grandfather, Llewellyn Joyce, and uncle, Robert Joyce, developed the common use of lobster cars on Swan’s to store lobsters over the winter in hopes of a better price in the spring.

“Big businesses hold them in large lobster pounds,” said Joyce smiling sheepishly, “but the small guy needs a wooden box.”

 Joyce has also seen permits established to fish beyond the three-mile boundary between state and federal waters. After a hard-fought battle, Joyce got his permit, without which he would have been “constricted to probably three-quarters of what I do now,” as most of his fishing is offshore 10 miles or more.

He also has had to adjust his fishing according to laws restricting new fishing licenses and protecting right whales. Joyce has seen the individual lobster trap limit for Swan’s Island go from 1,200 to the current 475 traps that one island fisherman can own and operate. He would prefer 600 as a limit, but he believes that the future for lobstering still looks promising.

Joyce used to spend time working with his father, Spencer Joyce, to learn more of the ocean bottom out in deeper water. But in recent years, he has acquired a Global Position System and Plotter enabling him to better pinpoint potential fishing areas. With the advent of the system, he found a fisherman could essentially “buy 25 years of experience.”

Joyce said lobstering is a tempting livelihood because “at times you make a lot of money.”

But the lobsterman pointed out the low times. “Some people look at what you make one day in August, but they don’t see the week in February that you get nothing.”

Lobstermen have to be very well organized, Joyce said.

This season alone, Joyce has already lost about 50 traps. Fully rigged, traps average $150 apiece. “It’s just something you have to prepare for,” Joyce said, “pay your bills ahead.”

His wife, Sarah, also a native islander with all nine of her siblings still living on Swan’s, remarked that her 8-year-old brother hauls 25 traps and can sometimes make $150 in one day.

Even then, Joshua Joyce added, “When it is good, you know it’s coming back around. You just have to try to hang in there during the bad times, and try to manage it during the good times. It’s something you have to commit yourself to. You can’t just take the good; you have to take the bad, too.”

Joyce advises those who are thinking about lobstering to start out small and try not to get too much in debt.

“It [money] is out there to be made, but you do have to spend it to make it,” Joyce said. “You have to buy traps and, if you want to fish deeper water you need a reasonable sized boat.

“It can be nice in the morning, but you can get out there and a storm comes up. It’s a long ride home.”