Fun C&R Codfish Outing

[Roccus7]

Boat has been sitting on the dock for windy 10 days and yesterday's windless AM beckoned me to saddle her up and go fishing. Stripers won't be around for another 2 weeks so I threw the cod rods and the Bacala Bucket of Jigs and Flies aboard, and headed out to my near shore cod spots.

Decided to go straight to the spots that were very productive last fall. Was a bit concerned when the machine was blank at the first hump, but its neighbor hump had small pods of fish sitting on the bottom. Slammed the boat into reverse and dropped my line to be greeted by a good solid hit after 7 jigs, resulting in this 24"ish fish that was feasting on Jonas crabs.

After a quick photo, back he went to his friends and I kept at it for another hour having fun with an additional 12 fish between 20" and 8", yes eight inches. The pockets of fish were very tight and I caught one cod on every drop, but only once was I able to catch 2 on the same drop. Interesting observation is most fish were on the fly and no double headers...

 

[longcast]

Boat has been sitting on the dock for windy 10 days and yesterday's windless AM beckoned me to saddle her up and go fishing. Stripers won't be around for another 2 weeks so I threw the cod rods and the Bacala Bucket of Jigs and Flies aboard, and headed out to my near shore cod spots.

Decided to go straight to the spots that were very productive last fall. Was a bit concerned when the machine was blank at the first hump, but its neighbor hump had small pods of fish sitting on the bottom. Slammed the boat into reverse and dropped my line to be greeted by a good solid hit after 7 jigs, resulting in this 24"ish fish that was feasting on Jonas crabs.

After a quick photo, back he went to his friends and I kept at it for another hour having fun with an additional 12 fish between 20" and 8", yes eight inches. The pockets of fish were very tight and I caught one cod on every drop, but only once was I able to catch 2 on the same drop. Interesting observation is most fish were on the fly and no double headers...
View attachment 115250

Battered on a sandwich.

 

[captmike28]

Boat has been sitting on the dock for windy 10 days and yesterday's windless AM beckoned me to saddle her up and go fishing. Stripers won't be around for another 2 weeks so I threw the cod rods and the Bacala Bucket of Jigs and Flies aboard, and headed out to my near shore cod spots.

Decided to go straight to the spots that were very productive last fall. Was a bit concerned when the machine was blank at the first hump, but its neighbor hump had small pods of fish sitting on the bottom. Slammed the boat into reverse and dropped my line to be greeted by a good solid hit after 7 jigs, resulting in this 24"ish fish that was feasting on Jonas crabs.

After a quick photo, back he went to his friends and I kept at it for another hour having fun with an additional 12 fish between 20" and 8", yes eight inches. The pockets of fish were very tight and I caught one cod on every drop, but only once was I able to catch 2 on the same drop. Interesting observation is most fish were on the fly and no double headers...
View attachment 115250

Sounds like a successful "maiden voyage" for '26. Well done.
Also looks pretty tasty to me; no way I'm throwing back a nice 24" Cod.

 

[Roccus7]

Battered on a sandwich.

Not until Sept 1 - Halloween for recs...

Sounds like a successful "maiden voyage" for '26. Well done.
Also looks pretty tasty to me; no way I'm throwing back a nice 24" Cod.

I learned a new Cod SOP living here and it's very different from the early 80s LI Playbook

1. I can catch cod as close to 1/2 a nautical mile from my harbor entrance. My "better" spots involve an "extreme" 16 nmi round trip which includes all the drifts; talk about fuel savings!! The cod in the bay tend to have more protein in them, e.g. seal worms, than their cousins a bit further out so if I am looking for dinner I do travel a bit. Believe it or not, on a whim I caught a small cod 1/2 nmi up a local, major tidal river!!
   
   
2. Bait, we don't need no stinking bait!!! Jig and a fly works great, so no bait mess nor prep time.
   
   
3. Dropping a hook, seriously?? If I were even to consider that, it would probably involve loss of an anchor or 2 each season as I'd be anchoring over rock ledges. It's bad enough trying avoid losing rigs, not a fan of losing anchors, especially when there's lots of "ghost" lobster trawls to snag into. Since I don't use bait, there's no attracting the fish to me, it's me finding the fish and drifting over them. Spot Burn Hint: Any hump that's at least 30' higher than the base will have some cod with the "sweet spot" between 60-80'.
   
   
4. But the BEST thing about inshore jigging: A SKUNKING is well-nigh impossible so this jerk is rewarded with a jerk on the other end!! May not catch a cod of decent size for eating, but besides cod, one will pick up mackerel, pollock, often of the "sangweech" size, Acadian redfish (excellent eating) cunners (bergalls) sometimes of sangweech size and big, ugly sculpin. They are good eating, but the ones big enough to bother cleaning are usually full of seal worms so they get released. I've also caught errant, and very small BSB and a bonito!!