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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is an outstanding book which interviews dozens of women fishers who work off Maine in the United States. They are captains and crew, some have grown up with fishing and others came to it as adults but they all have pride in their work, their physical strenth and expertise. The joy of this book is that it details how they work in every detail including when pregnant. Small children get taken to sea sometimes because there isn't alternative childcare, some of these women's earliest experience of the sea was lying in a padded crate while their dad hauled lobster traps.

It's dangerous, heavy work and the women discuss the challenges of proving yourself, the weather, accidents, the trauma of near-death experiences and not all boats have toilets. There is also lone-working and the sexism they experience. They also talk about the other threats of “Right Whale Regulations”, rising bait prices, tariff restrictions, virus outbreaks, the warming Atlantic and divisions between the lobstermen.

The author details the costs, the trap limits and sustainability measures and how children often start fishing in high school. The women talk about their love of the sea and species around them and worrying about the effects of climate change. But they also worry about the drop in earnings so some are involved in the highly profitable and totally unsustainable baby eels harvest - elvers for the luxery export market.

The term fishers has been used lately as an attempt to non-gender commercial fishing and recognise that women round the world have always fished, processed fish and managed marine resources and still do but very little has written about them. It is striking here that many of these women don't experience sexism from other fishermen but from the related trades or women in their own families. This may explain why all fishers call themselves fishermen and are called fishermen by other fishers, whether they are women or men. In lived experience it's probably difficult not to respect women who can haul hundreds of lobster traps, fix their engines, cope with morning sickness and juggling parenting and get in safely just ahead of a gale.

- Sarah Enson, Goodreads