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Monday, June 16, 2008
Lobster Buoys
Lobster Buoys

Captain Curt Brown

Catch a Piece of Maine

    If you’ve ever been to Maine you’ve probably noticed all the different colored buoys floating on the surface of the ocean. These are lobster buoys. Every lobsterman along the coast of Maine marks their traps with buoys that float on the surface and are attached to the trap with rope that runs from the trap up to the buoy. Each individual lobsterman has different buoy colors so they can distinguish their traps from others. Buoy colors range from plain white to elaborate color schemes with stripes and dots. My colors are fairly simple with green on top and tan on the bottom. I’m often asked how I chose which colors to use. The answer is pretty simple, when I first started lobstering as a kid I needed to decide which colors to use so I walked out to my parents garage and in the corner were two old buckets of paint. One can had green paint and one had tan paint and that was that.

Posted on Monday, June 16, 2008 in Permalink

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Reader Comments:
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Jun 23, 2008 04:09 pm
 Posted by  dan w.

Our recent trip to Schoodic Peninsula - Corea, Prospect and Winter Harbors _ proved fascinating to us land-locked Tennesseans....my telephoto lense reached out through the dense early morning fog to picture two working lobstermen running their traps....for the first time in my life, I had truly fresh Maine Lobster, straight off the boat for $7 a pound, and cooked in a backyard cooker filled with steaming seawater...what a treat.

Aug 1, 2008 01:10 pm
 Posted by  JaneEyre

I really enjoyed reading this post, Capt. Curt. I have 5 sons and three of them want to be lobstermen when they grow up. (They are currently 8, 6, and 3 years old; the 8 and 6 year olds decided three years ago that they want to buy a house in ME and be lobstermen. We currently vacation in ME every summer.) I love listening to them describe how they are going to paint their buoys - with stars and swirls and multiple colors and designs, etc., etc. - it always makes me chuckle.

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