Matt Gilley stood in front of a shelf in his Cundy’s Harbor home. It holds a collection of marine oddities from the bottom of lobster traps, such as unique lobster claws, a seahorse, and a full-sized clam that grew inside a Coke bottle.
“The fun part of it is, you don’t know what’s going to come up,” he said.
Gilley himself is a rarity in Harpswell. In a town with 216 miles of coastline and “working waterfront” on many local signs, he is one of a small group of commercial lobstermen involved in town government, spending his mornings on the water and his evenings advocating for those who work on it.
“I want to see lobstering continue, and the only way for that to continue is for there to be another generation,” he said. “If I can do anything to conserve what little we have left so other people can do it, I’m going to do it.”
Despite joking that he will feel like an “old man” when he turns 40 this October, Gilley is one of the youngest board and committee members in one of the oldest towns in the oldest state.
During a recent interview, he wore a battered dark-green hat and an old pair of jeans with dirt and mud seemingly woven into the denim. A graphic T-shirt with a moose across the chest fit loosely over his thin frame. Gilley quipped that he may hold the record for the smallest lobsterman, cracking a charismatic smile.
Gilley, a member of seven town and state boards and committees, was at his day’s interlude on June 26 — the respite after lobstering and before the monthly Planning Board meeting.
Lobstering his ‘second nature’
Gilley’s day began at 4:45 a.m., before the sun’s rays glimmered on Casco Bay waters.
He took the short drive to the Durant Lobster wharf before motoring over to the Catherine G., his 38-foot boat named after his wife, Catherine, and first dog, Gretchen.
At the dock, Gilley picked up his sternman, Jason Blackwell, who has learned the ropes and battled seasickness over the past year and a half.
“He’s an easygoing, good boss to work for,” Blackwell said about Gilley. “I learned a lot working with him in the short time.”
With pogies loaded into the back of the boat to bait his traps, Gilley jetted out of the harbor at 5:30 a.m. He approached a red and black buoy — the same colors as his dad’s.
Gilley comes from a lobstering family. Pictures show him on a lobster boat before he could walk. By age 6, he was on a skiff pulling his five traps in Cundy’s Harbor.
“This is my second nature,” he said.
Gilley studied accounting and economics at Western New England University and the University of Southern Maine before deciding on lobstering as a career.
He no longer had traps or a boat, but luckily had kept his license. Back at square one, Gilley started as a sternman, saving up for a boat and adding traps each year to the fishing grounds east of Orr’s and Bailey islands and west of the New Meadows River.
The Catherine G. idled in that slice of ocean on the day Gilley was interviewed. He attached a buoy to a pulley system. As a yellow cage reached the surface, he placed it on the ledge in front of him.
Opening a trap, Gilley found one lobster that he flipped back into the ocean without hesitation.
With years of practice, Gilley can often eyeball when lobsters are legal size — a regulation to maintain the population. From the eye to the edge of the body’s shell, the lobster must be longer than 3 1/4 inches and shorter than 5 inches.
Gilley pulled away, with traps plunging into the ocean one by one off the back of the boat. He then steered toward another buoy.
“As you see, it’s literally the same thing over and over and over again,” he said, lighting a Camel cigarette.
Challenging stereotypes
Gilley told a story of a time he ran aground on a ledge during a storm. His dad and neighbors, who were in the middle of eating dinner, dropped everything to help him.
He said the fishing community is sometimes unfairly stereotyped as being unfriendly.
“If somebody broke down out here, I’d tow them in,” Gilley said. “I may hate that person on land. I don’t care. They’re broken down. I’ll help them out.”
Gilley also is bothered by what he described as a stereotype of “stupid fishermen.” He spends more than 2,000 hours on the ocean every year, but said his observations often are not taken seriously.
He said higher education can carry a stigma within the community. Other fishermen, he said, jokingly call him an “educated idiot” for going to college, a choice almost looked down upon. He still questions whether it was a mistake.
Gilley credits a critical thinking class with teaching him to deliberate without emotion, a skill he often uses today.
Monique Coombs, director of community programs at the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, said Gilley has an ability to connect with others, even through disagreement.
“That’s a unique skill, in general, for people to have, and it’s incredibly important for making progress,” Coombs said. “Matt’s sort of the perfect representative.”
Concerns for the future
Gilley grabbed a piece of rope and showed a purple marking known as a tracer. If a whale gets tangled in the rope, this marking will identify the rope as originating with the Maine lobster fishery.
At the focal point of recent policy debates are North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species with roughly 360 remaining individuals, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA says ship strikes and gear entanglement are the whales’ leading causes of death, resulting in new regulations on lobstermen. Maine lobstermen have argued that their gear is not to blame, and until an entanglement in January of this year, regulators had yet to link Maine gear to a right whale’s death.
A regulation added in 2022 increased the number of traps that must be connected to a single buoy in many areas, thus reducing the number of vertical lines in the water.
Gilley said no lobsterman wants to hurt a whale, but he is concerned about the heightened safety risk accompanying more traps on a single line.
“I get it’s an endangered species, but they’re more concerned about protecting the whale than they are the fisherman,” Gilley said.
One solution pushed in recent years is ropeless gear, which stores buoy lines at the bottom of the ocean that remotely release when the fisherman is on-site, according to NOAA.
Lobstermen have pushed back, citing high costs and lack of effectiveness. Gilley tested one and said it failed 25% of the time. He said Maine’s rocky outcroppings and ledges make ropeless gear impractical.
The battle over right whale regulations is just one front. Gilley also has concerns about the push for floating offshore wind power along the New England coast.
The Gulf of Maine has been tapped as a target for the renewable energy source thanks to consistently strong wind velocity, according to the Governor’s Energy Office.
Gilley, along with fishermen across Maine, is concerned about how wind turbines and the cables carrying their power ashore will affect the marine environment. He said the resulting electromagnetic fields stunt the growth of lobster larvae.
The technology hasn’t yet been found to impact a species’ population, but further research must be conducted, according to the U.S. Offshore Wind Synthesis of Environmental Effects Research.
“I’m sure there will be some benefits, but there’s going to be some bad stuff, and the question they can’t answer is, ‘Where’s the line?'” Gilley said.
He added, “Nobody is supposed to own the ocean,” citing how different fisheries have always worked side by side. Offshore wind power would take over a chunk of the ocean, he said.
‘A different perspective’
That evening, Gilley sat at a table in the meeting room at the Harpswell Town Office, on Mountain Road.
There was a half-empty McDonald’s Coke to his left and an unpresuming paper nameplate in front. It symbolized his rookie status on the Planning Board, having joined as an associate member two months prior.
The meeting was dense with information. Gilley flipped through a thick binder, listening to the conversation and occasionally speaking up.
“He seems to do his homework,” said former Town Planner Mark Eyerman. “He’s learning, and I think he brings a different perspective.”
Select Board Chair Kevin Johnson, who serves with Gilley on the town’s Comprehensive Plan Task Force, said Gilley’s younger voice is important since most boards and committees consist of retirees.
Coombs, the fishing advocate, said, “If we want more young people in town and we want that perspective about where Harpswell is headed, we really need young people like Matt.”
Online to civic engagement
Gilley said his favorite part about lobstering was being able to haul traps without increasingly stringent regulations. It’s part of the reason he entered the political sphere.
Gilley said he is vocal on Facebook, but knows his posts accomplish nothing without action.
“I can’t stand those people that just say stuff and don’t do anything. It drives me nuts,” Gilley said. “If I can say it on Facebook, I can say it in a meeting.”
Johnson, a retired contractor from one of Harpswell’s oldest families, said local government was “all fishermen” when he was younger. Over the past 20 years, their participation has diminished.
“We’re missing their point of view,” Johnson said.
Jerry Leeman III, founder and CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, said civic engagement is difficult because fishing can be “life-consuming.” Leeman, who himself ran for the Harpswell Select Board this year, lauded Gilley for taking the time.
Gilley joined his first board about eight years ago, when he disagreed with a state representative’s proposal to open up lobstering to more people. In talking to her, he realized the danger of fishermen not providing input on fishing issues.
With family roots in Harpswell, he also is interested in preserving the town’s heritage.
He thought back to his childhood when the town was overrun with kids. Now, he said it has “flip-flopped” into a retirement community. He sees more “no trespassing” signs and fewer friendly waves.
Gilley knows it is human nature to be averse to change.
“I acknowledge that it’s going to change,” Gilley said. “If it’s going to change, I’m at least going to try to make it change in a way that I like.”
Frustration into action
Gilley said he aspires to work his way up the government ladder to the Select Board or even the Maine Legislature someday.
However, he said one learning curve has been the slow pace of policymaking.
“It’s rewarding when you can see a difference being made,” he said. “The frustrating part is I hoped that I could’ve changed (something), and I’m coming to the realization that I’m not going to.”
Gilley said he has seen small changes. Coombs said even minor changes, such as the town’s recently approved right-to-fish policy, are motivating.
“Seeing that there is impact, even if it is sort of slow and step-by-step, that’s important for the fishing community to see,” Coombs said.
The Planning Board meeting lasted just over two hours, ending at 8:36 p.m. Asked about his plans for the night, Gilley said he was going to bed.
After a day that began on the limitless ocean and ended within the confines of the Town Office, Gilley got into his car and took a left toward Cundy’s Harbor.
The next day would bring more hours of hauling and maybe a half-step of progress at a meeting. It is a cyclical life, but Gilley does not seem to mind — his mission is clear.
“Whether you like fishing around me or not, or you like me as a person or not, I hope they understand that I’m here to advocate for the fishermen,” he said. “I hope that, if nothing else, it’s gotten me the respect of other fishermen.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Gilley is a member of seven town committees. He is a member of four town committees and three state committees.
