Here's something I never expected to write: the Boston Globe spent a morning on a lobster boat watching me sell lobster to strangers through a phone.
Read Hiawatha Bray's full story in the Boston Globe →
Let me back up.
About three months ago, Whatnot called. If you haven't heard of it, Whatnot is a live shopping app. Sellers go on camera, buyers watch and bid in real time. Most of it is trading cards, sneakers, and jewelry. Whatnot wanted more food on the platform. Their pitch was simple: what if you sold lobster right off the boat?
I said yes before they finished the sentence.
Then I realized I needed a boat.
Enter Jack and the Last Call
My friend Jack Thomas of Cumberland has held a commercial lobster license since he was 13. He's 71 now, retired from a career in wealth management, and spends his days raising oysters and hauling traps. He'll tell you lobstering keeps him young. He'll also tell you about the rum.
Jack brought the boat. Marc Beaudry held the camera. I brought the orange bibs and a lot of talking.
What a live haul actually looks like
On September 22nd we pushed off from South Freeport into Casco Bay. Calm water, full sun, and, crucially, good cell service.
Then we hauled about a dozen traps, live, while a few hundred people across the country watched and bid.
Here's what they saw. Most traps come up empty or with shorts, lobsters too small to keep, which go right back in. Hitchhikers come up too: small crabs, a starfish. Native crabs go back. Invasive European green crabs don't.
We caught an egg-bearing female and showed everyone how we cut a V-notch in her tail. That notch tells every lobsterman in Maine to leave her alone so she can keep producing. That's how we sustain our harvest, and it's a big part of why Maine's fishery is held up as a model of sustainability.
Every keeper got bands on the claws and a kiss on the head. I call it binding and blessing. Nobody has complained yet.
The part where I sell things
While Jack worked the traps, I sold. Five-pound boxes of lobster straight from that day's haul. Frozen tails from our warehouse at 48 Union Wharf, some as long as my forearm. Cooked claws. Crabmeat.
The tails were slow at first. No bids. I held one up and reminded everyone that I'm a 6-foot, 230-pound man and this tail was still impressive. Then they started moving.
When we got back to the dock, we'd done about $6,000 in 90 minutes.
The honest part
Not every show goes like that. Some nights nothing happens and I'm standing there wondering how to connect. People want deals right now, and good lobster is hard to discount without cutting corners we won't cut.
But I keep coming back because this is the closest thing to standing on the wharf with you. You see the boat. You see the trap come up. You watch your lobster get banded. There's no stock photo between you and your dinner.
In three months, 8,500 people have followed our Whatnot channel. We go live up to three times a week.
Come aboard
Follow Get Maine Lobster on Whatnot to get notified when we're live. Show up, ask questions, heckle me about the lobster kissing. If you want the catch without the livestream, it's all at getmainelobster.com.
See you on the water.
Mark
Portland, Maine