The girls have been working on their Girl Scout Maine Lobster Patch and it's been fun learning experience for all of us.

After several weeks of lobster worksheets and trivia games at home, we were able to coordinate a visit to a lobster boat on Commercial Street in Portland thanks to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute for putting us in touch with Dave from the Lucky Catch.

The girls were introduced to lobster bait.

Then shown how a trap is baited. A dead fish is put in a mesh bag then a metal rod is threaded through the netting and placed in the center of the trap.

Dave explained how the lobster crawls in to the trap. We learned from an interesting website we found, that the first room of the trap is called the "kitchen" and because the lobster isn't smart enough to go out the way it came, it continues forward into the "bedroom" of the trap and gets stuck there.

There are small openings in the trap to allow for lobsters too small for market (under 1.25 pounds) to escape the trap while the legal catch size can't make it out of that hole. There is also a special tool used to measure the lobster's back to verify its size.

There are tanks in the boat to store the lobsters in salt water until they reach shore.

The girls learned that each lobster boat has their own special buoys. The lobsterman choose their colors and stick with them because that's how other lobstering boats can identify their traps. The girls were amused to hear that some lobstermen choose pink and/or purple for their buoys. The Lucky Catch uses green and red stripes.

The highlight of the lobster boat tour was the banding demonstration. L. was the first to get her 'claws' banded.

And of course everyone had to have a turn getting banded as well as operate the pliers.

Lobster claw elastics

My Girl Scouts learned a great deal about lobstering during their time on the Lucky Catch and can't wait until summertime when they can actually go out and bait, drop and pull traps as well as band claws on a Lucky Catch lobstering tour (I can't wait to try it too!).

Here are a few websites we liked about lobsters and lobstering if you're interested in learning more:
Catching LobstersLobster Tales & TriviaLobster Institute: FAQsA Lobster's LifeDiagram of lobster bodyNon-commercial lobstering regulations in MaineGulf of Maine Aquarium