6/11: Steakers!

By Tom O

6/10:
Capt. Josh ran the all-day trip aboard the Yankee Patriot today. The first handful of stops in the morning gave up a quick flurry of haddock but then settled into a slow pick of haddock, short cod, and cusk. The tide was running quite hard and despite the lack of wind, they were forced to anchor for the first two thirds of the trip. In the early afternoon, however, the tide slacked and they were able to drift. During the last few hours of the day, they experienced a strong haddock bite during which they doubled the total landings on board! Josh stayed out an hour late in order to capitalize on the fast action. There weren’t many cod in the mix today, and bait definitely had the edge over jigs. Overall, the fishing was fair, with a slow morning and a good last stop. Scott Navaroli of Leicester, MA won the pool with a burly 10-pound haddock that swallowed a clam.

Capt. Tom Orell reports good results on the first overnight trip of the season aboard the Yankee Freedom. After a bumpy ride offshore in somewhat sloppy seas, the action started off a bit slow in the morning, with just a pick on haddock and some cod. In the late morning, however, the bite picked up, and they experienced a handful of productive anchor stops from about 10:30 AM-3 PM, catching mostly haddock on bait but some decent codfish as well. By 4 PM, after 11 hours of fishing, everyone was satisfied with full bags of fish ready for filleting on the ride home. Capt. Tom billed the day good overall, with a slow to fair start and a very good late morning and afternoon. A 20-pound wolffish took pool honors. The next overnighter is on June 23, and still has plenty of space available.

6/11:
An enthusiastic Capt. Josh called in to report a very good day of fishing on the Super Thursday trip aboard the Yankee Clipper today! The day began with two long anchor stop of two hours apiece, each of which resulted in fast action on haddock for the bait dunkers and cod for the jig fishermen. And these codfish were no scrod—fish averaged 8-12 pounds, there were numerous fish in the teens, perhaps a dozen and a half in the 20s, and a handful in the low 30s. The largest one that Josh weighed was 32 pounds. The cod were fat, healthy fish that pounded the jigs and whose gullets were loaded with herring. Very few sub-legal or small keeper cod today—almost all were “gaffers.” Sounds like there were slightly more haddock than cod on board by day’s end, but if you wanted quality codfish as well as some haddock jigs were the way to go. And it looks like Josh’s suspicion that there were some nice cod in the deeper water that just hadn’t wanted to bite was spot-on!