My September and October schedule has been crazy with trips, while the wind continued to blow when I was home. I decided that I was getting out this AM come hell or high water, as my schedule, and the weather man, dictates hauling the boat out on Thursday or Friday, whichever one is not pouring rain.
Busted out early this AM and got to my closest, bestest, inshore cod spot. The machine lit up like a Christmas Tree on top of the ledge and I was excited, but all I caught up there were mackerel, small pollock and tiny, I mean microscopic, cod. After one drift I found myself in 80-100" of water with nothing on the machine, but I got a strong hit which I knew to be a larger cod, and dropped it.
"Ah HA!! They must be sitting on the downslope" and the game was on. On the next drift I nailed a double header of cod, the bigger one my Maine Local Inshore PB at 28", the other a piddly 19", something a commercial fisher could keep. Every drift from then on yielded keeper sized fish (our current Sept - Oct recreational cod season, which allows 1, 24" fish per angler) along with smaller fish. I threw back another 3 keepers, including a 27" fish, which rates as my second biggest inshore cod. The action was very consistent, but the drifts were short, maybe 10 min so multiple fish per drift wouldn't work, and the sounder was SILENT as to the presence of these fish. The other odd thing was that most of them were "kinda of there", no real hit and you didn't know you had a fish on until they woke up and ran to the bottom.
My Maine Inshore PB and her younger sibling, Older sister on a blue cod fly, youngin on the jig...
Busted out early this AM and got to my closest, bestest, inshore cod spot. The machine lit up like a Christmas Tree on top of the ledge and I was excited, but all I caught up there were mackerel, small pollock and tiny, I mean microscopic, cod. After one drift I found myself in 80-100" of water with nothing on the machine, but I got a strong hit which I knew to be a larger cod, and dropped it.
"Ah HA!! They must be sitting on the downslope" and the game was on. On the next drift I nailed a double header of cod, the bigger one my Maine Local Inshore PB at 28", the other a piddly 19", something a commercial fisher could keep. Every drift from then on yielded keeper sized fish (our current Sept - Oct recreational cod season, which allows 1, 24" fish per angler) along with smaller fish. I threw back another 3 keepers, including a 27" fish, which rates as my second biggest inshore cod. The action was very consistent, but the drifts were short, maybe 10 min so multiple fish per drift wouldn't work, and the sounder was SILENT as to the presence of these fish. The other odd thing was that most of them were "kinda of there", no real hit and you didn't know you had a fish on until they woke up and ran to the bottom.
My Maine Inshore PB and her younger sibling, Older sister on a blue cod fly, youngin on the jig...
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