Fishing’s been good!

By tomconley

It’s been an exciting and productive week out on the grounds, according to Capts. Josh and Kirk. A big push of haddock combined with diminished harassment by dogfish set the stage for a string of solid days of fishing aboard the Yankee Clipper and Patriot. After a decent weekend, nearly every trip this week has offered good action on a variety of groundfish. The haddock have been smacking both bait and jigs, with a smattering of small market cod, pollock to 15 pounds, and large cusk in the mix as well. Let’s get right to it:

Saturday, 7/25:

Capt. Josh reports a fair day of angling aboard the Yankee Clipper today. The morning started off with fast action on the drift, with the majority of the day’s fish coming aboard in the first hour and a half. Mostly haddock, with a handful of small market cod, including the 12-pound pool-winner, coming aboard as well. After that, however, the tide picked up, they were forced to anchor, and the bite tapered off substantially, with dogfish taking over and making effective fishing a challenging task. Jigs took some haddock and most of the cod, with bait catching more haddock but also nearly all the dogfish.

Over on the Yankee Patriot, Capt. Kirk enjoyed better success, reporting a good day overall. He was able to drift all day, with dogfish ever present but never to the extent experienced aboard the Clipper. Bait was the way to go, capturing most of the haddock, which constituted the majority of the keepers landed, as well as the 26-pound steaker codfish that took pool honors.

7/26:
Capt. Josh ran the all-day trip aboard the Yankee Clipper, calling it fair to good as a whole. The first couple of anchor stops in the morning offered a steady pick on cod, haddock, and a few 5-8-pound pollock—they caught what was there and then the action would taper off. Later in the morning, they made a shift into some deeper water, where they first had a pick of short and keeper codfish but later found a good bite on the haddock as well as a few flurries of pollock. As usual, Dave Sullivan was high hook with around a dozen pollock plus a smattering of cod and haddock, and he also won yet another pool with a 15.5-pound pollock.

7/27:
An enthusiastic Capt. Kirk called in to report an excellent day of haddock fishing aboard the Yankee Patriot on Monday. The light load of anglers enjoyed a steady pick on the anchor in the morning before experiencing a wide-open bite on haddock as well as some small market cod and cusk during three long drifts in the afternoon. High hooks had in excess of 20 keepers, mostly haddock, with anglers around the boat averaging ten haddock apiece! The pool was a burly 14-pound cusk. Dogs were manageable, with only a few dozen coming up over the course of the day. A great day in all regards!

7/28: Running the show for the limited-load trip on the Yankee Clipper, Capt. Josh reports that the fishing was just fair in the morning, when they made a mix of anchor stops and drifts that produced a grinding pick of haddock and some keeper codfish. An hour and a half-long drift in the afternoon, however, made the trip. Anglers enjoyed good action on haddock, cusk, cod to 14 pounds, a handful of pollock, and a couple of wolfish including the 18-pound pool winner. Overall, Josh deemed the day fair to good as a whole, with a fair start but a good to very good final drift to finish off the outing.

7/29: Capt. Kirk reports a good day overall on the all-day trip aboard the Yankee Patriot. Anglers experienced a steady pick all day on a mix of haddock, scrod-sized cod, and cusk, with a 10-pound cusk edging out a couple of cod to take pool honors. Bait seemed to be the ticket today; the doggies weren’t out in force today, allowing anglers to effectively fish the clam on the bottom for desirable groundfish.

7/30: Sailing with a light load of anglers, Capt. Josh reports good fishing on this week’s Super Thursday trip on the Yankee Clipper. Almost all anglers were jigging, and they started the day with fast, fish-a-cast action on cod, pollock, and haddock. Pollock actually constituted the majority of the legal fish during the morning. The short: keeper ratio on the cod was about 3:1. The few anglers fishing bait managed to catch a pile of haddock as well, since the dogs were not that bad—some had as many as ten haddock by day’s end. After noon, the bite in the area they’d been fishing tapered off, and Josh steamed off in search of new meat. The final drifts of the day offered a steady pick on mostly haddock with a few cod thrown in, with a fish or two coming up at all times.

7/31:
Fair to good haddock fishing was the order of the day aboard the Yankee Patriot Friday, according to Capt. Kirk. A steady grinding pick on the silver ones with the occasional cusk or pollock spicing it up. It certainly wasn’t a banner day but everyone had at least a few fish by day’s end. An 11-pound pollock took pool honors.

8/1: I jumped aboard the Yankee Clipper this morning for a rematch with my arch nemesis, Dave Sullivan. After losing the “buck a fish” battle last Thursday, I was ready for more punishment. The day began with fish-a-cast action, but mostly on short resident cod with a couple of keepers thrown in as well as a few haddock. After drift 1, I had put two haddock and a scrod in the box while Dave had a keeper cod. Unfortunately, after that first drift, the tide began to absolutely roar. Drifting soon became impossible. Then, when we anchored into the tide, lines screamed toward the stern. It was the worst tide I’d seen in a LONG time—even launching the jig as far forward from the pulpit as I could, it’d still be under the pulpit by the time I hit bottom. The challenging conditions made it difficult for many anglers to keep their baits on the bottom, which equaled one thing: dogfish, and lots of them. The beasts were thick today, both squirrely little males and big, nasty females. I caught 9 on the jig by day’s end. In the mouth. It hurt. Still, under those dogs were a smattering of groundfish—cod and haddock mostly, although Josh did stop on a pile of pollock that had no interest in biting anything we offered. The pool winner was a 15-pound wolffish.

The fishing was slow to fair overall, with just a pick of small cod, haddock, and the occasional keeper cod making their way through the onslaught of doggies. After a couple of rather unproductive anchor stops, Josh tried motor drifting in order to keep the lines somewhat manageable, which offered the most consistent action of the day on groundfish, but it was mostly on short codfish with a keeper cod or haddock coming aboard every once in a while. We would occasionally come across a slug of small market cod, during which a handful of 5-8-pound fish would come up at once.

The stars aligned, and I did indeed defeat the wily Sullivan today, edging him out, 6 keepers to 4. I had 4 codfish to 10 pounds—2 of which came as a doubleheader at the beginning of a motor-fishing stop—and 2 haddock, while Sully snuck out four cod. So it’s all even now, one victory apiece; stay tuned for the rubber match!

Although the fishing wasn’t the greatest today due to challenging conditions, both tide-wise and dog-wise, I was impressed with the effort the anglers put into it today. Even many apparent newbies with rental rods were willing to listen to the crew’s advice, and it helped to make a tough day as productive and enjoyable as possible. In any event, I had a great time as always, and can’t wait to do it again. Hopefully the bite just tapered off due to the ripping tide, and the fishing will improve back to the past week’s level in the coming days.