August 14 to August 17

By Tom O

Right you are, Kevin…Right you are .

Here are the reports from 8/14-8:17

8/14:
Capt. Smitty had the open trip on the Yankee Clipper today. He steamed back to the same area where Josh had enjoyed good success on Thursday, but found only a pick of haddock and large cusk. They made a shift of a few miles in the late morning, where they found some better quality fish, especially for the jig fishermen, but just not enough of them. Anglers picked away at haddock, nice-sized cod from 10-23 pounds (the pool winner), and medium pollock in the 12-15-pound range. However, the bite never really got going; the quality was there, but not the quantity. Smitty dubbed the trip fair overall.

Capt. Kirk had a charter on the Yankee Patriot, and reports a fair to good day. They started off with good action on keeper cod, haddock, and large cusk before settling into a steady pick on haddock and cusk for the remainder of the day. Not a bang-up trip for sure, but there seemed to be a fish or two coming up around the boat at all times.

8/15: —————————————————————–
At the last minute, my father and I decided to jump aboard the Yankee Clipper, with Capt. Smitty at the helm. My dad fishes with me only once a year, and we were running out of time before I head back to school, so we decided that Saturday would be the day.

It’s hard to imagine how the day could have been any more perfect. The weather was spectacular: flat calm, sunny skies, and comfortable temperatures. And the fishing, to be frank, was positively savage.

We began drifting at about 8:15, and I spent the first couple of minutes giving my dad a refresher course on how to jig up in the pulpit. While I was showing him the proper technique, I hooked a fish and passed it off to him. From then on, it seemed that at least one of us would have a fish on for the remainder of the trip.

As he cranked to the surface, I heard him grunting and groaning (“Man it’s deep, my wrists are killing me!”)—the guy is 69, after all—but after a little while we saw color: a 20-inch codfish. It was one of only four or five short codfish we’d catch between us over the course of the day.

I took a cast, and on my first jig stroke stuck a haddock on the teaser. Dad flopped out his 12 oz Lavjig and promptly hooked a 26-inch cod. He finally got in a comfortable position in the pulpit and was able to crank without his arthritic wrists giving him too much trouble—although he did continue to lament the anchor chain that “prevented [him] from setting his feet.” This, he insisted, was why he kept dropping so many of the fish he hooked.

After a bit of skill-honing, the old man was in fine form—good jig stroke, slow, steady cranking, and even hand-over-handing haddock into the boat without calling for the gaff. He even snared a few haddock and keeper cod employing the time-tested “haddock wobble.”

As Dad continued to perfect his technique—catching a fish every time he dropped down, mind you—I was busy doing some damage of my own on the port side of the pulpit. My second cast found me fast to a fat 19-pound codfish; my third, a small market cod. This fish-a-cast silliness continued…and continued. I’d swing a haddock over the rail; Dad would call for the gaff on a 10-pound cod. The action would taper off briefly—by which I mean I’d jig for a minute or two before hooking up—before picking right back up again.

Smitty never moved the boat. He never needed to. Our day consisted of one 4-hour and fifteen-minute-long drift, and we caught fish the whole time. So did everyone else: 60% haddock, 30% cod, and 10% cusk—mostly “large bolognas,” mind you. No pollock. But all quality; as I mentioned, you could count the number of short cod we caught on one hand. I captured my token doggie on the jig, but they were virtually nonexistent. A large blue shark terrorized us for a few minutes early on, but subsequently disappeared. The drift was easy, tangles were minimal, and the fish were hungry.

And we continued to catch. Dad, softy that he is, began feeling bad that he was killing so many fish. After all, for a guy who goes out once a year, who knows? Maybe they catch ‘em like this every day! Despite my—and mate Dave’s and Smitty’s—insistence that this was a very special day and that the haddock biomass is the highest it’s been in 40 years, he released a few cod back to the ocean alive, watching them for a few moments after dropping them into the sea to make sure they swam down. I followed suit, although since most of the keepers we caught were haddock, they found their way into various burlap sacks lining the deck.

By 11:30, Dad’s arms had had enough, and he was hungry. Plus, he wanted to try to get cell phone reception on the upper deck since he was on call and needed to make sure that “none of [his] patients [were] dying.” Of course, there was no reception, and we were later relieved to discover that nobody did in fact die on his watch…

He went to get a cheeseburger and Heineken from galley cook Jay, while I continued to do my thing. It was more of the same, and I captured a white hake and a 17-pound cod in addition to the take of small market cod, haddock, and cusk. I had two fishless casts all day.

By 12:30, we were done. And everyone was okay with that. I kept a running tally of the fish that Dad and I captured, and it went something like this: 26 haddock, 13 keeper cod, 13 cusk, and one white hake. And to top it all off, the old guy managed to take the pool with a 12-pound cod! Not bad for someone who does this once a year, eh?

Overall, I’d deem the day excellent. So did Smitty and just about everyone else on board. I’m not sure how it could have been any more so. The only bad thing about it is that now my father might expect that kind of action on every trip he goes on! Thanks for a good time, Pop.

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Capt. Bill Muise, filling in for Capt. Kirk, ran the Yankee Patriot on Saturday, and tried out a different area. Unfortunately, the fishing was on the slow to fair side, just a grinding pick of haddock and cusk with a few keeper codfish mixed in. They drifted all day and anglers put the effort in, but the fish just weren’t in the mood, it seems.

8/16: On the Yankee Clipper, Capt. Ray enjoyed a good day of fishing, heading back to the same area where Smitty had enjoyed his success yesterday. The bite started off with two long, productive drifts on mostly haddock and cusk, with some cod mixed in. It never got hot and heavy but there were always a few fish coming up with the occasional haddock flurry as well. The third and final drift was not as productive as the first two, but by that time most people had more than enough fish to go home with anyway.

Capt. Smitty ran the Yankee Patriot yesterday and reports that the fishing was just fair. Just a pick of haddock and cusk for most of the day. Evidently, the bite was early on Sunday, and by the time the Patriot (the 7AM boat) got to the area where Ray was fishing, the bite had already begun to taper off. So it goes!

8/17: Capt. Kirk, on his first trip as the man in the wheelhouse aboard the Yankee Clipper, reports a fair to good day of fishing today. Mostly haddock and cod to 14 pounds, with only a handful of cusk mixed in. Dogfish were once again quite manageable; let’s hope that trend continues!

Willy