Kelly Hinkle of Columbia Falls has a novel way of celebrating the end of a hard fishing season – by “breaking” his back.
Hauling his last trap of the year by hand – hand-over-hand, until 65 feet of rope has run through his fingers, is his idea of tradition?
“The last trap of the year we hand haul,” Hinkle, aka “Downeast Cowboy,” says on his Facebook video of the process.
For the Hinkle family of Washington County, Kelly, 36, and dad Ron, 64, lobstering is all about tradition.
Hauling their last trap by hand is grueling, but done for a reason, Kelly told The Maine Wire.
“We started that tradition a few years ago,” Kelly says. ”It’s a way to remind ourselves how thankful we are to have that hauler.”
He was referring to the mechanical pulley that lobstermen typically use to pull their traps.
Before there were mechanical means, there was nothing but elbow grease.
Clearly out of breath after pulling up a trap from the ocean’s depths at the end of nearly 70 feet of rope, Kelly bid adieu to another year on the water in downeast Maine.
“So til next year get at it,” the Maine Maritime grad said in his signature catch phrase that has caught on big-time on Facebook.
Besides hauling 650 traps, Kelly is also the author of several children’s books about the charm, stories, and spirit of his home state.
After putting their 36-foot boat Allegiance up for the year the Hinkles joined fellow townsfolk in Addison, their hometown, dedicating what is arguably the largest Christmas buoy tree around.
The tree, consisting of more than 1,000 buoys (just about one for each resident of the town) and large enough to walk into, includes several memorial buoys for fishermen who have since passed on.
Three hundred of the townspeople celebrated the tree Saturday night.
