Cod Marathon, Yankee fleet

Yankee fleet has marathon trips in summer time. From Boston area, it is closer than Newburyport or Hampton fleets. I made a reservation for a marathon trip in July.

When I went to an allday cod trip for the first time, I had a hard time reeling in fish. I decided to buy a power handle for my Penn 555GS. After installing the new handle, reeling became much easier. I set the reel to Ugly Stik BWB 1140 with a clump. I also got a 14 oz LavJig this time.

Yankee Clipper left the dock at 5 and we started fishing a little after 7. I kept a spot at port side near bow. I started with a jig and a fly. At the first cast, I got a hit soon. It seemed decent but what showed up was a dogfish. Although there were some cod on board, dog were too many. After a few resets, we still had some dog. When a fisherman pulled a dog, the rig tangled with my main line and teeth of the dog cut my braided line. I grabbed the end of line so I tied the line and started fishing again. However, there was another weak point. When I jigged a few times, the main line broke again. My rig was recovered because it was tangled with another rig but I gave up main line of 50 YD or so.    

After I got a few small keeper cod, the captain moved to deeper water. More of the main line went out from the spool. When the jig reached the bottom, a fish hit. Good one! It was a decent size pollock. Immediately after that, I got another hit at the falling near the bottom. It was even better size of pollock. A fisherman next to me got double. School was there. I got another hit at the bottom. This one didn’t swim a lot. A bait fisherman asked surprisingly “Got another big pollock?” I replied it was like a cusk. What I reeled in was not a pollock this time but a cusk.

I found pollock hit on a falling jig. I tried squidding, reeled 15 turns and dropped to the bottom. I got another hit. When I said it was another pollock, a fisher man said might be a side-hooked dog. What I found after reeling was a nice pollock. It didn’t fit in my 50 QT cooler box. I got a coffee bag and put two big pollock in it.

After noontime, I had steady catch of cod. When I thought I got a good one, it was a side-hooked dog. The jig fisherman next to me limited out for cod. I got 7 cod at that time and wondered if I switched to bait. However, there weren’t many haddock. I kept using a jig.

In the meantime, wind stopped completely and the boat was dragged by the current. My jig caught the anchor rope. The captain decided to pull the anchor and switch to the drifting. There was little time left at that time and I fished with bait for 15 minute until the end of the fishing.

I got 8 cod, 3 pollock, and 1 cusk. Pollock were all big, 8, 10 and 13.5 lb. Although cod were not so big, they were delicious. It was very good trip and I enjoyed it!

Cod Fly

I had stock of Mustad O’Shaughnessy (3407DT) 6/0 50 pack. I bought it for cod flies. Although cod flies are not so expensive, they are consumed as you lose jigs.

When I tied cod flies last season with pink braid nylon hair, they worked well. However, there were two major problems. One was that the hair slided on the shank during jigging. The other was that occasionally a part of hair was lost. I changed the design to improve it.

I bundled a hank of nylon hair with braid line at the middle and folded the hank. The center of the hank was fixed to shank near the eye. At the beginning of tie, I put the line through the eye once. This design prevents hairs from moving and being lost during fishing.

This winter I got nylon hair materials for doll. It was softer than the material I used before. So I slightly increased the volume of the hair for a fly. Flash yellow looks very good.

Smelt Fly

When I searched web sites, I found Fishin’ Hole rig with flies. The bead head glow-in-the-dark fly looked nice. I had some materials. I tied flies of similar design.

Hook
What came up to my mind for thin wire hook with a straight eye was bronze Aberdeen #8 available at Wal-Mart. It is sold as 20CT bulk packs and reasonably priced. Although I liked the wire gauge, the gape was too narrow considering big mouth of rainbow smelt. I knew it was easy to bend this hook because I used #4 for flounder fishing as an “easy unsnag” rig. I made the gape wider and the shank shorter with a plier.

Bead and thread
Available at AC Moore. I got gold beads of 3 mm diameter and fine thread of dark red color.

Fiber
I blended glow in the dark and flash yellow nylon hairs.

Tying is simple. Hook a bead, tie fibers and fix with Krazy Glue Advanced.
















From the top, an original #8 hook, a modified hook and a tied fly

Pollock Boil

It was the middle of June. I went to State Pier for mack. I arrived at the pier a little before sun rise. I set a Rexbait rig and casted. The first fish was a 12”pollock. I released it.

In the meantime, I found surface actions here and there. Maybe stripers were chasing bait fish. I set a Storm jig to a surf rod and casted on the boil. Active surface actions were within the casting range. Although the jig dropped on the sweet spot of the action, I couldn’t have a hit. I realized that it was different from schoolie.

I got back to sabiki and casted to the surface boil. In a few seconds, I got full hook of pollock. I found some baby herring of two inches from the mouth. Pollock were chasing bait fish on the top! It surprised me a lot because pollock were bottom fish for me.

I followed the boil to the inner part of the harbor. Surface action spread all around the dock with full volume of the noise. Splendid view! It was literally the BOIL! Every time I casted the rig, I got 4-5 fish. It was tough to reel in.

Fish were gone around 6 o’clock. I came back to the original spot and got a mack, which was the only one for the day. It ate small herring, too.