Horse News
Member
Here is the latest article from Barrel Horse News -
Barrel racer Tomi Colson balances her horses with her day job: lobster fishing.
While some folks in our barrel racing community have both horses and boats, not as many use those boats for work. But Tomi Colson sets out on her boat every day as a lobster fisherman out of Corea, Maine, a lobstering village in the town of Gouldsboro. This wife, mom and horse owner manages to balance a job on the ocean with her life on solid ground.
Colson, her husband Adam and their daughter Kale. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Colson is a commercial lobster fisherman and she harvests seafood for human consumption. Her days start between 4 and 4:30 a.m. to care for her horses and complete barn chores. Her 5-year-old daughter Kale is in kindergarten, and after dropping her off at school, she heads to the harbor.
“Lobster fishing is very unique,” Colson said. “It’s one of the neatest jobs. You get to work for yourself. If the boat doesn’t go out, then you don’t make money.”
She got into this line of work through her grandfather, who was also a lobster fisherman. She started going to haul with him when she was 8 years old and continued with him for 16 years.
“I made a promise to my grandmother that I would go to college and get an associate’s degree of some sort to fall back on, should lobstering ever flop, so I have my medical assistant degree as well,” Colson said.
Now 32, Colson has had her own 36-foot-long BHM boat, called Tide & A Half, for four years.
“I love that boat — I would say it’s been one of my biggest accomplishments as a fisherman,” Colson said. “It’s been my dream to have a boat of that size.”
Colson enjoys the work immensely. It’s what she’d always wanted to do.
“Lobstering, when you go out there and you get to hauling your lobster traps, and the lobsters are running really good, you’re racing all day long, and it’s just a feeling of being free,” Colson said.
Colson has been fishing since she was 8 years old. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Colson and her grandfather who got her into fishing, shown here in the photo that first piqued Adam’s interest. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Colson and her favorite dog on her boat.
Colson, her husband Adam and their daughter Kale. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Views from Colson’s boat out on the water off the coast of Maine.
Tomi Colson’s boat Tide & A Half
She fishes year-round, and says lobster is primarily seasonal, running better in the summertime. She fishes for other seafood during the rest of the year. On the boat, she usually employs one other person, and spends around seven hours each day on the water. Daily, she’ll bring in seafood in live wells, which has raw water from the ocean keeping the lobster alive until she gets to the market.
“In our harbor, we have a co-op, and it’s owned by 40-some-odd lobster fishermen, including myself,” Colson said. “That’s where we drop our lobsters off at the end of the day, and they take them and sell them for us.”
Her husband, Adam, is also a lobster fisherman with his own boat. The couple met after Colson posted a photo on Instagram of her and her grandfather holding a big haul of halibut. Adam, who fished out of the same harbor, took note.
“He messaged me on Instagram and was like ‘nice fish.’” Colson said with a laugh. “It’s really corny, but that’s basically how we met.”
Colson has loved horses since she was little, riding around on her pony.
“She was like my four-wheeler,” Colson recalled. “I rode her everywhere — literally everywhere. I rode her to my neighbors. There was an arena a couple miles from me, and my grandmother would follow along behind me and I’d trot down the road to get there because we didn’t have a trailer.”
After a couple of years with the pony, Colson’s grandmother suggested getting her a horse. So her very first barrel horse was a mare named Didnt Miss Athing, nicknamed “Phish.” Colson kept Phish until the mare was almost 30 years old and passed away, last year.
Phish taught Colson how to run barrels, and the pair competed all over the place, from Syracuse, New York, to Georgia.
“She was the best horse, to this day, that I’ve ever hard, and she could lay down a 19-second pole run,” Colson said. “She was just so fast, and she was just shy of 14 hands.”
Colson aboard her horse “Dolly.” Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Juggling two horses and barn chores with motherhood and lobster fishing is a challenge. Colson’s husband built her a barn when they first met a few years ago, and she says horses are a permanent fixture in her life.
Colson says she lucked out with the horses she has.
“They’re easy, they retain information really well,” Colson said. “You can hop on them and let them sit for a week, and they’ll be the same as when you rode them last.”
Her older mare is 2008 bay mare One Bad A (Fishers Dash x Cupids Special Fly x Strawfly Special). She was originally owned by a friend and passed along to her.
“Two weeks after I got her, she started acting really funny, and her eye was ulcerated for a long time,” Colson said. “We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. Her gaits were off.”
Even though equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) is not endemic to the Maine area, she requested EPM testing from her veterinarian.
“The veterinarians look at you like you’ve got six heads because it’s impossible, but it’s not, because these horses are exposed to it before they come up here,” Colson said. “And if they are sick, they could relapse, which was what she was doing.”
The mare, nicknamed “Dolly,” was successfully treated, but Colson keeps her stress level to a minimum.
“She’s basically just a pasture pet now,” Colson said. “She keeps my gelding company.”
Colson’s newest horse is 2019 sorrel gelding Mr Featured Jess (TF Featured Effort x Ms Sandra B x Jesse James Jr), a 4-year-old who’s just started on barrels, but is already showing great promise.
“’Judd’ is just awesome, does anything you ask of him,” Colson said. “He’s real gentle, but he’s real green, so finding the time to get him sped up is hard.”
The Colson’s also have three dogs. One of them is 10, and he goes everywhere with her.
“He’s my travel buddy,” Colson said.
Accomplishing work and home chores, while fitting in riding her horses is a challenge, but she tackles it head-on every day.
“[Fishing while having other responsibilities at home] is really a balancing act,” Colson said. “Some days you get in and it’s been really rough out with the weather and the waves. It just gets real choppy, and you feel like you’ve been in a washing machine. You just have to sit down, cook dinner, take care of your family and the horses, and then put riding last. It’s a big chore to find the energy to ride. And it might only be for five or 10 minutes that I get to ride, but I still try to do it .”
Colson’s husband enjoys hunting and fishing, and Kale has pygmy goats rather than riding at the moment, so horses are Colson’s hobby to enjoy on her own. She says they are her mental break in life.
“Horses are an escape,” Colson said. “When you’re out there, and you’re cleaning stalls, and the price of feed is skyrocketing, horses really are a stress reliever. You can pick your stalls in peace, and brush them, and the horses have a very calming vibe. And when you do get to ride and enjoy them, and you see progress, it’s rewarding.”
The post On High Seas: balancing barrel horses and lobster fishing appeared first on Barrel Horse News.
Read More...
Barrel racer Tomi Colson balances her horses with her day job: lobster fishing.
While some folks in our barrel racing community have both horses and boats, not as many use those boats for work. But Tomi Colson sets out on her boat every day as a lobster fisherman out of Corea, Maine, a lobstering village in the town of Gouldsboro. This wife, mom and horse owner manages to balance a job on the ocean with her life on solid ground.
Colson, her husband Adam and their daughter Kale. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Life As A Lobster Fisherman
Colson is a commercial lobster fisherman and she harvests seafood for human consumption. Her days start between 4 and 4:30 a.m. to care for her horses and complete barn chores. Her 5-year-old daughter Kale is in kindergarten, and after dropping her off at school, she heads to the harbor.
“Lobster fishing is very unique,” Colson said. “It’s one of the neatest jobs. You get to work for yourself. If the boat doesn’t go out, then you don’t make money.”
She got into this line of work through her grandfather, who was also a lobster fisherman. She started going to haul with him when she was 8 years old and continued with him for 16 years.
“I made a promise to my grandmother that I would go to college and get an associate’s degree of some sort to fall back on, should lobstering ever flop, so I have my medical assistant degree as well,” Colson said.
Now 32, Colson has had her own 36-foot-long BHM boat, called Tide & A Half, for four years.
“I love that boat — I would say it’s been one of my biggest accomplishments as a fisherman,” Colson said. “It’s been my dream to have a boat of that size.”
Colson enjoys the work immensely. It’s what she’d always wanted to do.
“Lobstering, when you go out there and you get to hauling your lobster traps, and the lobsters are running really good, you’re racing all day long, and it’s just a feeling of being free,” Colson said.
Colson has been fishing since she was 8 years old. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Colson and her grandfather who got her into fishing, shown here in the photo that first piqued Adam’s interest. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Colson and her favorite dog on her boat.
Colson, her husband Adam and their daughter Kale. Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Views from Colson’s boat out on the water off the coast of Maine.
Tomi Colson’s boat Tide & A Half
She fishes year-round, and says lobster is primarily seasonal, running better in the summertime. She fishes for other seafood during the rest of the year. On the boat, she usually employs one other person, and spends around seven hours each day on the water. Daily, she’ll bring in seafood in live wells, which has raw water from the ocean keeping the lobster alive until she gets to the market.
“In our harbor, we have a co-op, and it’s owned by 40-some-odd lobster fishermen, including myself,” Colson said. “That’s where we drop our lobsters off at the end of the day, and they take them and sell them for us.”
Her husband, Adam, is also a lobster fisherman with his own boat. The couple met after Colson posted a photo on Instagram of her and her grandfather holding a big haul of halibut. Adam, who fished out of the same harbor, took note.
“He messaged me on Instagram and was like ‘nice fish.’” Colson said with a laugh. “It’s really corny, but that’s basically how we met.”
Horse Girl
Colson has loved horses since she was little, riding around on her pony.
“She was like my four-wheeler,” Colson recalled. “I rode her everywhere — literally everywhere. I rode her to my neighbors. There was an arena a couple miles from me, and my grandmother would follow along behind me and I’d trot down the road to get there because we didn’t have a trailer.”
After a couple of years with the pony, Colson’s grandmother suggested getting her a horse. So her very first barrel horse was a mare named Didnt Miss Athing, nicknamed “Phish.” Colson kept Phish until the mare was almost 30 years old and passed away, last year.
Phish taught Colson how to run barrels, and the pair competed all over the place, from Syracuse, New York, to Georgia.
“She was the best horse, to this day, that I’ve ever hard, and she could lay down a 19-second pole run,” Colson said. “She was just so fast, and she was just shy of 14 hands.”
Colson aboard her horse “Dolly.” Photo courtesy Tomi Colson
Balancing Act
Juggling two horses and barn chores with motherhood and lobster fishing is a challenge. Colson’s husband built her a barn when they first met a few years ago, and she says horses are a permanent fixture in her life.
Colson says she lucked out with the horses she has.
“They’re easy, they retain information really well,” Colson said. “You can hop on them and let them sit for a week, and they’ll be the same as when you rode them last.”
Her older mare is 2008 bay mare One Bad A (Fishers Dash x Cupids Special Fly x Strawfly Special). She was originally owned by a friend and passed along to her.
“Two weeks after I got her, she started acting really funny, and her eye was ulcerated for a long time,” Colson said. “We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. Her gaits were off.”
Even though equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) is not endemic to the Maine area, she requested EPM testing from her veterinarian.
“The veterinarians look at you like you’ve got six heads because it’s impossible, but it’s not, because these horses are exposed to it before they come up here,” Colson said. “And if they are sick, they could relapse, which was what she was doing.”
The mare, nicknamed “Dolly,” was successfully treated, but Colson keeps her stress level to a minimum.
“She’s basically just a pasture pet now,” Colson said. “She keeps my gelding company.”
Colson’s newest horse is 2019 sorrel gelding Mr Featured Jess (TF Featured Effort x Ms Sandra B x Jesse James Jr), a 4-year-old who’s just started on barrels, but is already showing great promise.
“’Judd’ is just awesome, does anything you ask of him,” Colson said. “He’s real gentle, but he’s real green, so finding the time to get him sped up is hard.”
The Colson’s also have three dogs. One of them is 10, and he goes everywhere with her.
“He’s my travel buddy,” Colson said.
Accomplishing work and home chores, while fitting in riding her horses is a challenge, but she tackles it head-on every day.
“[Fishing while having other responsibilities at home] is really a balancing act,” Colson said. “Some days you get in and it’s been really rough out with the weather and the waves. It just gets real choppy, and you feel like you’ve been in a washing machine. You just have to sit down, cook dinner, take care of your family and the horses, and then put riding last. It’s a big chore to find the energy to ride. And it might only be for five or 10 minutes that I get to ride, but I still try to do it .”
Colson’s husband enjoys hunting and fishing, and Kale has pygmy goats rather than riding at the moment, so horses are Colson’s hobby to enjoy on her own. She says they are her mental break in life.
“Horses are an escape,” Colson said. “When you’re out there, and you’re cleaning stalls, and the price of feed is skyrocketing, horses really are a stress reliever. You can pick your stalls in peace, and brush them, and the horses have a very calming vibe. And when you do get to ride and enjoy them, and you see progress, it’s rewarding.”
The post On High Seas: balancing barrel horses and lobster fishing appeared first on Barrel Horse News.
Read More...