“I got my license when I was eight,” said Reagan Anderson, 18. “I did too,” added her sister Keltsey, 14. The two live in Searsport where they learned as children to lobster with their uncle, Travis Otis, aboard their grandfather’s boat First Team.
A younger Reagan with a mighty lobster.
Reagan recalled the early days when she was first working with her uncle. “I loved going out no matter what the weather was. I remember when I got my first lobster, it was almost ten pounds. It was bigger than me! I was in awe,” she said. Keltsey also took to the water right away. “It was an added bonus to get to go fishing. I remember I always woke up early on the days we’d go out.”
Reagan, who graduated high school in 2024, now has her own boat, a 34-foot wooden boat called Barely Legal which is slowly being refurbished. “I paid $1 and a Mountain Dew to get it off the mooring,” she said. Previous owners had not kept up with the maintenance a wooden boat requires so major repairs were needed.
“I am getting to know the entire boat through the refit,” Reagan said cheerfully.
The two sisters working together on First Team. T. Otis photo.
Being in the lobstering world means a great deal to both women. Keltsey, a freshman at Searsport High School, has a few traps of her own and works as sternman for her uncle during the summer and fall months. “Honestly, it’s still fun. I meet new people and have new opportunities. I get to be on the water. It’s rewarding,” she said. “I can see working with lobstering full-time because I can do so much with it. There are so many things you learn to do on a boat that you can use in school or in other things.”
Reagan took a year off after high school to consider her future. “The fishing industry has had a period of time when no one knew what was going to happen. I’m applying to college and I think I can make college and lobster work. They will have to work, because I want them both,” she said. She feels that the Maine lobster fishery will always be a part of the working waterfront, no matter what. “Change is not the end of the world. We will always have lobstering in some form,” she said. “And the skills you learn fishing you can use in so many different fields. I just bought my first diesel truck and I know how to work on a diesel engine.”
“Everyone is always thinking about ‘what if?’ But the industry is still here,” Keltsey said. “Lobstering can’t die. There’s so many people who depend on it.”
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