Eve Zuckoff

After three decades of fishing for lobsters in Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, Rob Martin knows his boat inside and out.

"It's only 40 feet. It was big when I first got it and now it seems small," he says while warming up inside the cabin on a cold morning.

Just as Cape Cod lobstermen have done for centuries, Martin used to check his traps by looking for buoys connected to cages on the ocean floor by ropes.

But his buoys are gone and he is one of a handful of Massachusetts lobstermen testing ropeless fishing systems.