5/28-29: Good again!

By tomconley

It looks like Wednesday was an anomaly, since yesterday and today the bite was on once again with mostly cod and some haddock mixed in as well. It’s mostly been a jig bite but some nice fish have succumbed to the clam too. Here’s what the guys have to report:

5/28:
Capt. Kirk took a light load of hardy anglers on the Super Thursday 5-5 trip on the Yankee Patriot today. They encountered strong northeast winds and a hefty 4-6-foot chop, conditions which necessitated anchoring for the entire day. They began fishing at 6:30 and found the codfish on the chew, actively chowing down sand eels and herring. Their first anchor stop lasted for two hours and offered fast action for the duration, with at least a handful of keeper fish coming up at all times. The bite gradually slowed down over the course of the day—it really seems to have been a morning bite as of late. The jiggers caught many quality codfish while those fishing bait had some nice haddock, although there were some dogfish mixed in as well. When all was said and done, Kirk deemed the day good as a whole, with very good fishing in the morning but just fair action in the afternoon. Dave Sullivan was once again the fisherman of the day; he was high hook with sixteen legal fish and won the pool with a 20-pound codfish! The man is a menace! I’ll be joining him on the Yankee Clipper tomorrow in what will surely be a fruitless attempt to keep pace with the Yankee Fleet’s newest superstar.

Capt. Josh had the Jack Marcus charter on the Yankee Clipper. The trend throughout the day was similar to what Kirk experienced: good action in the morning tapering down to a pick later in the day. The fish were actively feeding in the morning and pounding the jigs, but as the day progressed more and more cod and haddock succumbed to clams fished on the bottom, including the largest cod of the day at 22 pounds.

5/29:
Capt. Kirk had the open boat on the Yankee Patriot, and reports that the fishing was better today than yesterday; more fish were caught by fewer people. The morning bite was hot and heavy, fish-a-cast action on quality, “gaffable” cod from 8-14 pounds. The bite slowed down for the last hour of the trip, but by that time everyone had plenty of fish in the boat. The pool fish was a cod of around 20 pounds. One interesting note: Kirk was mackerel fishing for a good portion of the trip and not only was he able to fill a five gallon bucket with the speedy scombrids, he also hooked a handful of scrod-sized codfish on his mackerel rig between 40 and 80 feet off the bottom! If that doesn’t show that these fish are aggressively feeding, I don’t know what does! Surely, a diamond jig squidded through that part of the water column would have culled out some larger specimens.

Josh had a charter on the Yankee Clipper today, and also reports a good to very good day. It was a bit tricky because the charter wanted to fish bait despite the fact that it’s primarily been a jig bite recently, but they still managed to put a good number of fish in the boat including a number of haddock and nice market cod in the 14-18-pound range. Josh anchored, motor-fished, and drifted today, finding the best action to be on the drift.

I’ll be out on the Yankee Clipper tomorrow–look for a report in the evening.