Capt. Ray reported another great night of squid fishing and a very pleasant turn out of squid anglers. Good news travels fast and many of our ace squidders were aboard last night filling their five gallon pails to the brim with mostly large and jumbo tubes. Most people who stayed at the rail had three quaters to one full five gallon pail with a few doing as little as a half bucket and some busily working on a second. One duo combined for just under 200 big tubes last night and many of these tubes are well over a foot in length with some approaching fifteen inches not counting tentacles!!! The squid were all over the column but the biggest were caught jigging near the bottom. The past two nights all types of squid jigs seemed to produce, one thing of note from years of observing this fishery is that the guys who use the lightest freshwater trout or super light fluke rods and light line do seem to catch the best. While rod rentals are available, your favorite fresh water spinning rod may very well be the golden key to your squidding sucess, just something to keep in mind. The season is off to an awesome start, perhaps the best ever so far in our history of night squidding. Capt. Ray looks forward to another beautiful night on the water this evening with the Squid boat setting sail at 7pm aboard the Lady Frances, call the office to make a reservation and come on down to get your fill of these tasty mollusks!

Capt. Mike was very encouraged by what he saw today on the local fluke grounds. We checked out all the usual early season haunts along the south shore beaches finding a pick of fish everywhere with a couple spots producing some pretty steady action. Only problem was we would have liked to see more keepers. We did have a handful of nice keepers to 4lbs nonetheless with Dana from Canton getting a pair of fine keepers to take home and winning the pool. The water is still on the chilly side but the bait is here and the fishing will only continue to improve on a daily basis as the water slowly warms. Roger stayed very busy today with the tandem bait rig today and wound up with dinner and had most of his fish on the higher hook with no teaser, just bait. All in all most of the varied terminal tackle did seem to produce at least some shorts and in the morning before the tide change Roger and a few other fishermen noticed that some of the fluke were quite aggressive taking baits fished off the bottom. All in alll a lot of very good signs today. We sail for fluke tomorrow morning at 7am on the Lady Frances with Capt. Mike.

Capt. Ray was very pleased to report the first night of squid fishing 2011 outstanding. It was a one stop night with squid starting to fly aboard from the moment the anchor came tight until he sounded the horn to go home. Frequent double and even a few tripleheaders. Too bad it was just a handful of eager squid anglers but all did very well with a great pick that was rock solid all night long. Many of the anglers aboard filled a full five gallon bucket with no one doing less than a half bucket. The sizes were mixed but mostly large and jumbo tubes, many of which were in the fourteen to sixteen inch rage!! Yozuri jigs were tough to beat and while the squid were all through the water column last night the best bite seemed to be on bottom. The squid are gorging on very large sand eels, some of which are the kind one would expect to see on a George’s cod trip. The squid bite is on folks and the next trip will set sail tonight at 7pm with Capt. Ray aboard the Lady Frances so call the office to make a reservation and come on down!!

Capt. Rich was pleased to report both very good fishing and beautiful weather on today’s cod outing. A nice jig bite in the morning on the drift with a nice bunch of double headers and then the wind came up and we sat on the hook one stop for the rest of the day with a slow pick of nice size green cod and once we were on the anchor the bite was on bait. Just about everyone had fish today and the majoirty of anglers left with around or better than a half dozen nice green cod apiece. Nothing big but all beautiful fat healthy green fish with quite a few in the 8 to 10lb range and the best in the low teens. A few angler hi lights linclude the following: Ken from Norfolk Ct who had seven nice cod and a pollock while Don from Rocky Hill Ct took home 8 good size green cod while another duo of anglers teamed up for nearly a dozen nice cod. A few good size mackerel and a couple ocean pout and the one pollock rounded out a good catch of cod. An increase in the number of short cod as well today. Still a tremendous amount of bait on the grounds holding the cod fish in the area. Next cod trip is set to sail tomorrow morning at 6am by reservation on the Gail Frances.

The Gail Frances called in to say the fishing today so far today has been much much better than Monday’s outing. Roger reported quite a few fish in the 10-12 lb range. We will have a full report when the boat gets in at 4:00. Remember tonight’s our first squid trip, so if you ar interested give the office a call. Tomorrow we plan on one boat cod fishing as well as our first of the season fluke trip. Please call the office to make reservations for either one of those trips.

After a few days off the Frances Fleet is looking forward to going fishing again tomorrow. Capt. Rich will be set to sail at 6am tomorrow morning on the Lady Frances. We will be taking reservations for tomorrow’s trip until at least 8pm this evening. The crew is also anxiously looking forward to tomorrow night’s first squid trip of the season, setting sail with Capt. Ray at 7pm and we are also very excited about the first day out after fluke which will be Saturday morning at 7am. Reports both first and second hand are of both fluke and squid showing up along Rhode Island’s south shore beaches.

Capt. Rich reports a very long and tough day of local cod fishing despite the incredible weather. We drifted all day long, just with the tide as the water was like a mill pond. Regular Norm grabbed a nice cod today in the mid to high teens and had a couple other nice market size fish while regular Joe had two nice pollock including a slammer of 20lbs which was today’s pool fish. A couple other cod and a few shorts, a handful of nice size mackerel, a couple perch and that was it for the day. Every keeper cod and pollock was taken on jigs and teasers. Looks like some weather over the next couple of days so hopefully we can get back out there later this week.

The Lady Frances is out today with just a handful of anglers. No word on the fishing, as of this report, but Roger will be in later and will update with all the details of  today’s trip. On another note, one of our crew members went out in his own boat for the season’s first fluke and came home with dinner not just for himself but also a few co-workers as well. The fluke season officially opened May 1st, the Frances Fleet will begin it’s trips Saturday May 7th. Our schedule for May will be daily, weather permitting, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We are also “expected” to start squid fishing Friday May 6th, but that will be confirmed later in the week.

Capt. Rich reported that todays cod fishing took on a much more relaxed pace than the previous day’s fishing. The fish seemed to be very scattered over a large area and not nearly as bunched up as the day before, and chasing down mackerel which means they would be under the boat for a minute and then they were gone. Mackerel being members of the Tuna family are very fast swimmers and mackerel also must never stop swimming or they will die. When cod fish chase mackerel they will swim way up in the water column at times with cod fish today hooked as much as 30-40ft above the bottom!! Anglers did manage to some nice green white bellied cod in the boat with Ken from Durham CT taking the pool with a fine hanger just shy of 30lbs in fact had she been filled out the fish would have been well over 30lbs. Another angler today had a triple header of nice green cod with a total weight of probably close to 25lbs when we went over a pile of fish. A couple cod were caught on bait but the vast majority of the fish boated were taken on jigs/teasers. We also had our first keeper fluke and short fluke of the season on the cod jigs today and also had a smattering of good size mackerel and one big ocean pout. While the bite was off today there was still a good sign of fish in the general area and a slower trip was bound to happen sooner or later. We will be taking reservations til around 6pm this evening for tomorrows outing. The weather looks very nice tomorrow to go out after cod.

Capt. Rich reported a very good day on the local cod grounds with a lot of really nice quality cod fish brought aboard today. A very good slug first thing in the morning settled into a steady pick the rest of the day. Early on the fish hit both bait and jigs well but the bite eventually went to just jigs with the butterfly and hammer style jigs doing the best. Pink colored teasers also seemed to be preferred by the cod today. The biggest fish today was a solid 30lbs and it was followed by a few others around 20lbs and quite a few in the teens. Not nearly as many shorts today and the majority of the fish were of the larger market variety and larger. A tremendous amount of mackerel and herring on the grounds holding the fish in the area. Ken and Matt from JB Nianitic crushed the cod today easily putting a couple dozen good size fish up to 20lbs in the boat and were true sportsmen keeping less than the reccomended limit and sharing the wealth with those less fortunate. A good number of other anglers had a half dozen or more fish apiece as well. Good scores were seen all around the boat however the numbers per angler did vary rather dramatically today. That is just the way cod fishing is sometimes. Next cod trip is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 6am on the Lady Frances so please call the office to make a reservation and get in on this great spring run of cod!!