Day Fishing Not Bad; First Overnighter=Excellent!

By willy

Sunday, 5/23:
Capt. Josh reports a fair day of fishing aboard the Yankee Clipper on Sunday’s 7-4 day trip. They drift-fished all day and experienced a decent pick of mostly haddock with some cod, pollock and cusk mixed in.

Yankee Fleet patrons love their haddock!

The bite was definitely better in the morning and more or less died in the afternoon after the tide changed. High hook was Pete Jones with 11 keepers, mostly haddies.

5/23-24 Overnighter:
Capts. Dave and Kirk ran the first overnight trip of the season aboard the Yankee Freedom, and report excellent results! The light load of anglers started early Monday morning with a fast bite on a mix of cod and pollock, mostly the latter, on jigs, before settling into a good pick on those two species plus some haddock. An easy day, Capt. Dave reports. A 12-pound pollock took the pool.

Monday, 5/24:

I had the pleasure of jumping aboard the Yankee Clipper with Capt. Josh at the wheel and my dear friend Audrey accompanying me for her first cod trip. After a two-hour steam we made a couple of drifts and found a grinding pick of mostly haddock and cusk with a few short and keeper cod in the mix. Audrey hooked and dropped something large before cajoling a nice haddock into snapping up her teaser and then snaring a cusk.

Audrey White with a beautiful haddock jigged up aboard the Yankee Clipper on May 24.

We were picking away and certainly could have scraped a day out of it, but Josh had bigger, better things in mind and around 10:30 he elected to make a major area change. After a 45-minute steam, we found immediate action on actively-feeding pollock and cod with some haddock in the mix too. A 30-inch striped bass was caught as well.

Most cod were shorts, but there were some keepers mixed in, while the pollock averaged 6-10 pounds and all the haddock were large, 5 pounds and up. Fish were pounding sand eels and took jigs readily—bait guys had a few haddock but also were harassed by enormous female dogfish.

Audrey White with a cusk aboard the Yankee Clipper, May 25.

The action was so fast at times that I put down the rod and helped out with gaffing fish and getting anglers re-rigged. Audrey was in fine form, hooking up on almost every drop, much to the chagrin of her railmates, myself included!

Unfortunately, while the fish were amenable to biting once we found them, they seemed to be stacked up in small, localized patches; Josh had to keep his eyes glued to the machine in search of fresh piles. As a result, the final number of keepers at the end of the day wasn’t quite where we would have liked to see it, making for a fairish to good day overall. Between us, Audrey and I put something like 10 keepers in the boat, a mix of cod, pollock, haddock and cusk. But we still had a lot of action, with short cod keeping us busy when the quality fish weren’t coming aboard. We stayed late to put a few more fish in the boat and weren’t tied up

"Mr. Wee" with a haddock aboard the Yankee Clipper, May 25.

at the dock until about 5:30. A 14-pound pollock beat out a couple of similarly-sized specimens to take pool honors.

Tuesday, 5/25:

Capt. Pete reports a slow day aboard the Yankee Freedom on Tuesday’s limited-load trip. Just a slow pick of haddock, cusk, a few pollock, and a mix of short and keeper cod. A 10-pound pollock took the pool.