Hi all. Barb here.

I’ve written in the past about how I went to the Cabbage Island Clambake to research Clammed Up, and how I traveled to the Machias Blueberry Festival to research Boiled Over. The third book in my Maine Clambake Mystery series, Musseled Out takes place in the world of lobstering. So you guessed it, we’re going out on a lobster boat.

As always, my timing was off. Musseled Out was due June 1, and while some Maine lobstermen work year-round, and many start their season in April, no one was taking tourists out until well into May. I went out with Captain Clive Farrin in Boothbay Harbor, and I totally recommend the tour.

Captain Clive Farrin explains how to measure the lobster. In Maine legal lobsters must be between 3 1/4 and 5 inches long on the carapace (from the eye socket to the start of the tail). Larger and smaller lobsters must be thrown back.

Of course, I’d done a lot of reading (and completed a first draft) before I went out, but there’s nothing like the experience. I would have gotten most things right, but several small, but important things wrong.

Sternman Cage prepares a bag of bait to put in a lobster trap.

Hauling a trap.

A lobster in the tray waiting to be measured and banded.

A female lobster bearing eggs. She’ll have a V notch put in her tail and be thrown back. The V means she can’t be taken even when she is not bearing eggs.

The string of traps going off the stern, back into the sea

I had a blast doing this bit of research and hope you enjoy Musseled Out.