Capt. Rich reported a good day of local cod fishing. Biggest fish today was around or just under 20lbs but most of the cod taken today were nice green fish from 8 to 15lbs. A lot of green small cod today as well strongly signaling the arrival of a new body of fish just moving onto the grounds. The cod were not as spread out as one may have hoped but a good number of the anglers aboard today had three to five nice green cod apiece. A few angler hilights: Genario from Milford CT was hi hook by a landslide today with ten nice green cod, 9 of which were between ten and fifteen pounds! Genario did all his damage with a HANDLINE!! Thats right with a handline like they did years ago, no rod and no reel. Geario had handlined for a living years ago back in Italy and it sure showed today! It proves what I have been saying for years about a lot more fish swimming by the boat than what actually ends up in the boat and that fishing hook and line does not catch every single fish. What was also impressive about this fine gentleman was that he did not tangle anybody up today using the handline. Eric from NY had five fine cod including the pool fish today while longtime regular Ed Pol had four nice green cod to take home and so on. There were several anglers that had one cod or no cod and that is just how cod fishing goes sometimes as the bite is still very soft and the fish showed no interest in jigs today despite some valiant efforts. The cod bite is often so soft that anglers often do not feel the bite and the cod hooks itself or the cod pulls the clam right off the hook or sucks out the belly of the clam and then moves on to the next bait or just moves on. Just a couple big scup and a few ocean perch and a few alligator blue fish and a scattering of nice size sea bass but not nearly as many as we have had in recent days. Today there were however an AMAZING amount of tangles and only a few handfuls of people on the boat. Some times the drift and tide conditions cause the anglers many challenges but when anglers are fishing with different types of line and different weights and different rigs and the like it can be even more exaggerated. Years ago when anglers fished in a more uniform way and crowds were much bigger as a rule, sure there were tangles but with everyone using mono they were easily and efficiently resolved so that people were back fishing as quickly as possible. Again a reminder that stout tackle is needed for this trip, especially in the fall. A perfect example was a big blue fish hooked on the port side of the boat with braided line which took out five anglers on the starboard side of the boat. A couple of the anglers were out of the water for nearly 25 minutes while the mess was being resolved!! So that is nearly a half hour of lost fishing time due to a big blue fish which was not controlled well while a pick of nice green cod was in progress. Had this mess been made with mono NO ONE would have been out of the water for more than a few minutes! I know the argument that this is party boat fishing but at some point it becomes quite unfair when anglers fishing with mono and rental rods are kept out of the water due to braid products and therefore those anglers loose precious fishing time and miss out on the bite. Funny how the guy fishing with the simplest rig of all (handline) left the majority in the dust anyway size and numbers wise and that gentleman was fishing right next to two rather experienced rod handlers who respectively only had three and four cod apiece. Anyway aside from the tangles and all that it was a good day of fishing overall and I think there are an awful lot of cod starting to move into the area. Lets just hope for some better weather. Call tomorrow afternoon after four pm to double check on the weather for Friday’s possible cod trip at 7am with Capt. Rich aboard the Gail Frances. A couple pics to showcase today’s angler hi lights courtesy of Roger will be posted above today’s posted report.
Capt. Mike reported awesome black fishing today with close to a full boat limit of nice tog to ten pounds and there was also a nice mix of good size sea bass to nearly four pounds to compliment the excellent haul of tog. Plenty of short tog also to keep things rolling right along and anglers busily baiting their hooks. Just a great day of fishing! There will be NO TOG TRIP THURSDAY OCTOBER 27TH DUE TO THE WEATHER. The next scheduled tog trip will set sail on Friday October 28th at 6am with Capt. Mike aboard the Lady Frances.