A lifetime harvesting the resources of Great Bay - New Hampshire ...

In longstanding tradition,
Baymen meet on
the mud flats of Great
Bay on a September
Saturday for the first
day of clamming season.
©David O’Hearn photo
An engine chugs across
the Stratham-Newfields
railroad trestle over the
Squamscott River near
Great Bay.
Previous page and
below: Still stunning
today, the expansive
view of Great Bay
from the fire tower
in Stratham Hill Park
inspired the author as
a boy.
age, I had acquired a taste for softshell clams. There is
a Bayman tradition that continues to this day – all the
“old salts” like to meet at the flats on the first day of
clamming each September. It is a good place to share
a beverage and catch up on each other’s activities. The
oyster tongers are there too. If we’re lucky and the
water is clear, we can pick a couple gallons of oysters
right off the bottom. This is a day I look forward to
each year.
Lobstering
Like any good tree with strong roots and a straight
trunk, branches started to appear – my interest in the
bay deepened as I discovered new possibilities. Two
of my good friends, Joe Daley and Mark Dolloff of
Newfields, N.H., were trapping lobster in the Great
Bay estuary. After a couple adventures on their boat, I
knew this was something I had to try.
Who would have thought so far from the ocean we
would have American lobster? The nursery of Great
Bay plays a special role for the lobster. Each spring,
lobsters migrate from the ocean into Great Bay to
shed or “molt” their shell. The lobsters come for the
mud that dominates the floor of the estuary. After a
lobster sheds its shell, it is very vulnerable to predators.
Lobsters use holes in the mud to hide in while
their new shell hardens. Great Bay is a good place
to see the difference between a hard shell (recently
arrived from the ocean) and soft shell (new shell
hardening) lobster. A hard-shell Great Bay lobster is
quite a delicacy.
I started with five traps. Those five traps grew to
ten, and then to twenty, in the first few years I trapped.
I had outgrown the center console and started searching
for a genuine lobster boat. In 1997, I purchased
a 1972 18-foot Norton, originally made in Hampton,
N.H. I equipped it with a 75-horsepower Yamaha.
Then things came full circle – a boat slip became
available on the Squamscott River. The USS Coalman
had found a new home.
©David O’Hearn photo
Call of the Bay
It is hard to describe the feeling I get each time
I pass under the Stratham-Newfields trestle into
Great Bay. The first thing to come into view is Mount
Agamenticus in York, Maine. As I bear left in the
channel along Black Bank, the Labonte Farm and the
mouth of the Lamprey River come into view. When I
reach the point where the Squamscott and Lamprey
rivers converge into Great Bay, I can see the Stratham
Hill tower. It makes me chuckle, thinking there may
be a young boy or girl at that very moment, standing
July/August 2009 • Wildlife Journal