I picked up my friend in early morning and drove to New Bedford. When we got into the boat, there was plenty of space on the port side. I kept spots for five in the middle. Soon the father and the son arrived. I set rigs and told the boy how to.
I used a surf rod and an Okuma spinning reel with 50 LB PowerPro and mono leader. When I fished scup in summer, I felt it a little tough to reel in because scup was an excellent fighter. I brought a conventional cod tackle for my daughter. It should be easier to handle. In addition to them I prepared a light tackle. When I compared the sturdiness of light rods, I found Shimano Sojourn 7’ was the toughest. I set a medium spinning reel with 30 LB PowerPro and mono leader.
As for rigs I made a bunch with 30 LB mono. I wondered which size of hooks work best. Although baitholder #2 worked best for July scup, fish of spring run seem bigger. The recommendation of Viking was #1/0. For me, Baitholder #1 looked versatile and I mainly used this size. For kids, I made dropper loop ones for easy untangle. For adults, I made a kind of high-low rigs. At 12’’ below the end loop for connecting main line, I made a dropper loop of 1’’ for a branch. I put a swivel to the dropper loop and connected 5’’ of branch. Another larger dropper loop for a sinker was made at 20’’ below the branch. Another hook was tied at 10’’ below the sinker. This rig can minimize the twist of the branch. We started with 6 oz sinkers except for my daughter, using 8 oz because of the cod tackle. I put a 4 oz one to the light rod.
The boat left the dock at 5 and arrived at the spot around 6:30. As soon as I dropped the rig for my daughter, fish bit on. I couldn’t have time to set mine. She got a big one soon and it was a big seabass. Great start! I started fishing with my rod. We kept steadily and the cooler was filled in high pace. Average size was 12-13’’ and occasionally 15’’ size showed up. Fish filled 60% of cooler space in one and a half hour. It was still before 8! Others did well too. Although my friend wanted to catch a seabass, he continuously reeled in scup after every drop.
Around 9 o’clock, the wind got stronger as the weather forecast said. If the wind came from the bow, the boat would be pretty stable because of the size of the boat. However, the strong current that day also pulled the boat to the different direction. The wave hit directly to the side of the boat and the boat started to roll. The boy got sick after a while. My daughter also got tired of the fishing and went to the cabin.
Fathers kept fishing with mix of seabass. I switched to the light rod and enjoyed for a while. I found a little higher frequency of losing fish. Maybe setting hook was incomplete with the soft rod. Another con of light rod was that I had to grab the leader to pull fish into the boat. I switched again to the cod tackle and caught a seabass. Maybe 8 oz sinker worked better for seabass.
As the tide changed, the rolling got milder. She started fishing again. In the last 1 hour, there was very little space in my cooler box. Smaller keepers were all released. Hook up became a little difficult. She needed to set hook several times to get one. The fishing ended around 11. We all literally ‘filled’ coolers.
I and my daughter kept 52 scup and 3 seabass. Although the bag limit of scup for two was 90, a 50 QT cooler couldn’t hold that many. Fathers did awesome jobs! They kept catching all trip long, stepping on the lid of the cooler box in the end. I was impressed with the tremendous catch of spring run! I enjoyed eating for months, too!
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