Not until Sept 1 - Halloween for recs...
I learned a new Cod SOP living here and it's very different from the early 80s LI Playbook
- 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!!
- Bait, we don't need no stinking bait!!! Jig and a fly works great, so no bait mess nor prep time.
- 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'.
- 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!!
Cod regulations have become ridiculously strict, and I was kind of hoping you might have a narrow spring window for retention in ME. Sorry to hear it is just a C&R fishery for now.
As far as Cod occupying shallower waters. back in the heydays of the early 60's I used to read articles about surf fisherman working the RI shoreline targeting and catching Cod from the beach!
In terms of technique. while old stinky clam baits used to be the norm for us here on LI, jigs always produced as well for those willing to put in a bit more effort. And often they would cull out the larger sized fish.
On the subject of tackle, I have told the story many times about a series of annual summer vacations I took over the course of about 6 years during the mid 70's to early 80's, always stopping in Boothbay Harbor to go Codfishing on Billl Bibber's "Codfather" ( as far as I know the original charter boat using that name). In those days all the locals used a single 12-20oz. Norwegian jigs, no fly or teaser, to ply the 150-200' offshore depths we were fishing. I thought I was a real smartass by bringing my Montauk knowledge with me and adding a tube tease about 3' above the jig, catching many double headers. In fact, my PB Cod of 54# was caught on one of those teasers which quickly shut down a lot of the locals laughing at my funny setup!
What I also found amusing was on 2 occasions some other fishermen from the NY area also joined us and brought along some clams thinking they would have an edge. The result was they would catch about the same number of Cod but mostly "market sized" fish. It got to the point where the regulars were very unhappy with these bait fishermen attracting all the small fry and eventually banished them to fishing in the bow!!
The trips on the "Codfather" were such a hoot, I still have a copy of the guy's business card with his photo on it. In real life he literally looked like Brutus from the Popeye cartoons! Of course, I can't pass up an opportunity to post a big fish picture of myself as well. Really amazing times.
