5/13: Excellent day today!

By tomconley

An enthusiastic Capt. Kirk just called in to inform me about the very good to excellent trip that anglers enjoyed aboard the Yankee Patriot today! Former longtime captain of the Patriot, Phil Hoysradt, made a guest appearance to fish with his nephew Capt. Kirk at the wheel. The first two quick drifts of the day were pretty much dead, with only a few sculpins and ocean pout coming aboard. It was quickly apparent that nothing was going on there, and Kirk bumped up the throttles and moved a few miles to a new area, where whales and gannets could be observed feeding on the surface.

As soon as Kirk set up a drift, anglers started bailing fish, mostly cod to start but changing to haddock as they drifted into somewhat shallower water. It was fish-a-cast action, with roughly a 3:1 short:keeper ratio for the codfish and numerous double headers mixed in. Lots of the keeper cod were small markets in the 8-10-pound range, spunky fat fish that were full of bait. That drift lasted from 9:20-11:30! At that time, the wind puffed up a bit and Kirk motor-fished for a few hours, allowing anglers to enjoy the same fast action on actively-feeding fish over the open bottom. Kirk said that they covered almost two miles while motor-fishing, and that he marked bait and groundfish the whole time! An encouraging sign for sure! Keeper landings were about 70% haddock and 30% cod. Yankee Fleet all-star Dave Sullivan once again nabbed the pool with a 12-pound market cod–it must be the new line!

There are two trips sailing tomorrow: the 5-5 “Super Thursday” marathon on the Yankee Patriot and the 7-4 All Day trip on the Yankee Clipper. The time to get out there is now–what are you waiting for?!

Willy G.