Len Sawyer
Maritime Studies Capstone Seminar Oral History Project
MAST 4994W/AMST 3265W Capstone students at the University of Connecticut produced podcasts from oral histories that they collected during the Spring semester 2020.
Oral history interview with : Len Sawyer, resident of Mystic, Connecticut, retired lobsterman from the long Island Sound.
Recording format/notes: Recorded phone interview digitally, using one phone on speaker to talk, and another phone to record to the app “Voice memos”. Recorded at my computer desk at home while on the phone. Phone interview necessary during Coronavirus, otherwise, it would have been a physical face-to-face interview.
Subjects/Topics: Lobstering being a Family Business and generational, stringing bait and lobster pots, lobstering time schedule, lobstering exclusively in the Long Island Sound, working exclusively with his grandfather and hauling and baiting pots, uncle dying of asphyxiation on boat, weather unpredictability effect on lobstering, Building their own lobster pots, Poachers stealing gear, First-hand experience with Lobster shell disease, Trawling, Connecticut killing tons of lobsters with mosquito repellent in Sound & Monetary Compensation, catch regulations, trawling line length, bait fish, Fisherman wrapped up in gear story, Navy & Submarine story, buying bait
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