Weekend Report

By tomconley

Weekend Report

5/30:
I had the pleasure of fishing aboard the Yankee Clipper for what will likely be my last cod trip for quite some time, since I’m heading to Woods Hole for the summer tomorrow. It was a good day for the boat as a whole, but very good for the proficient jig fishermen who knew how to cast and work a jig. For most of the trip, there was not a breath of wind but due to the strong tide Josh was compelled to motor-fish in order to slow our drift speed through the zone. The day began with fish-a-cast, near-“fish-a-jig stroke” action, with a fair amount of shorts but lots of smaller keepers in the 24-26-inch range too. I’d say the short: keeper ratio was about 4:1, although we did drift over some patches of bottom that held almost all keeper fish. High hook Tim Caswell and myself, jigging in the pulpit, had easily caught our limits within two hours of our first casts.

The cod were actively feeding throughout the day, except for a brief lapse in action around slack tide, and jigs ruled once again. There were also some nice haddock caught, including my biggest of the year at around 6 pounds. But the vast majority of legal fish caught were codfish. I caught a good number of fish squidding a 6-ounce diamond jig with a white tube and a Cocahoe Minnow on a dropper loop. Lots of double-headers throughout the day—many of them were doubles of shorts but I had at least two double-keeper catches that I recall. The bright stuff seemed to do the trick today: pink, white, and chartreuse. The cod seemed to be following the boat as it drifted—lots of fish were caught on the down-drift side of the boat. Certainly a good day to “fish out” your casts!

In the afternoon, Josh made a shift into some shallower water where a multitude of humpback and minke whales were assaulting massive schools of sand eels on the surface. Not far below them, cod ranging from shorts to nice markets were getting in on the action too—I hooked some keeper cod in the 8-12-pound range squidding the diamond jig as far as 40 feet off the bottom! Most of the better-quality fish for the day were caught in this shallower water, including the pool-winning 20-pounder. Strangely, the fish that came up seemed to be either shorts or markets over 8 pounds; there were very few scrod-sized keepers in the mix like those we had seen during the morning.

Overall, it was another fun trip and a great way to cap off what has been an action-packed season of spring fishing on Stellwagen! Can’t wait to get back out with the YF soon.

Over on the Yankee Patriot, Capt. Ray ran the boat; Kirk, who worked deck, reports that the fishing was on the fair side. Unlike the Clipper, which had to motor-fish for much of the day, the Patriot’s low profile and heavy build allowed it to dead-drift all day. Capt. Ray worked hard, repeatedly positioning the boat over packs of hungry codfish. However, within a few minutes they’d move off of the fish and Ray would have to shift back on top of ‘em. As with the Clipper, most fish caught were on the jig, although some impressive haddock, including one that tipped the scales at 10 pounds, fell for a piece of skimmer clam. One highlight of the day was when a 200-pound porbeagle swallowed a mackerel that an angler had hooked. The fight lasted for 3-4 minutes before the feisty lamnid’s sharp teeth and rough skin earned it its freedom. The pool fish for the day was a 10.5-pound codfish.

5/31:
The Yankee Clipper was chartered by the crew at BTU International of Billerica, MA. Capt. Josh headed to the same area that we fished yesterday, but all except a few anglers were fishing with bait, and the cod weren’t too interested in chowing down the clams. As a result, only the couple of guys who were jigging put fish in the boat. Josh decided to make a move to a location that had produced a good bite on haddock a few days before. The first two anchor stops here resulted in only a slow to steady pick, with a few fish coming up at all times. The last stop, however, made the trip—an hour and fifteen minute-long anchor stop that produced a good pick with some solid flurries on mostly haddock with some codfish mixed in. Overall, it was a fair day, with a slow to fair morning and a good final stop.