Every winter about this time, the Tomcod start to move around the pond. I hear this is the time that they spawn. Today we saw some big ones in the gear--9 and 10 inchers!!!!!! Good looking fish, handsome, I'd venture to say-- Tasty too, is what I hear, though I've never tried one.
Down here in Southern New England, where the water temps are'nt to the Tommies liking we don't see all that many; but then in the winter they show, as if from nowhere.
Felt like passing it on........

Like eating baby scup...fried country style:drool:

G/F I use to catch all season long========but mostly early spring ,fishing for flats or this time of year fishing for them , don,t see them much anymore
march/april=you use to be able to fill pails daily at ----------------------chit catch hell if you name specific spots:D :smash:

do you what's funny? when i first caught a tomcod, i thought i accidently killed a baby cod and went to the fore river's bait and tackle and asked rick if he cld ID it. And he didnt know what it was.

Notaro--they sure do look like baby codfish.

Originally posted by goosefish
Notaro--they sure do look like baby codfish.
Exactly. I was relieved when i discovered it was a tomcod before thanksgiving!:hee:

Goose fish, I've never seen a Tomcod, thought they were one of those fish that "used" to be around. Do they take a jig?

i caught some tomcod while smeltin last year, quincy. they are good eating mine were bout 6 inchers.

I caught one a couple of years ago on a piece of squid while I was going for fluke. This was in the middle of the summer.

I'm sure they would take a jig, Toonoc. I did a bit of reading about Tomcod. South of Cape Cod the Tomcod--know also as frostfish--move out into slightly deeper water, outside the estuaries, where the waters are cooler. Then in the fall they head back into the estuaries to spawn. Up in the Gulf region, North of Cape Cod, they never leave the bays and coves, and are rarely found in water more than a fathom or two deep.

Other local fish show an opposite migration. Fluke, seabass, scup, all head out into deeper water in the winter time. The waters offshore, say in fifty or sixty fathoms, are much more stable and warmer than water that is inshore. When I use to work on draggers we would target fluke and scup, all through the winter, in an area know as the mud patch--which is a huge area just inside of the shelf break, out maybe sixty miles. When the limits were set more strictly on draggers, and consequently, less fish were harvested, the inshore summer runs of these species really increased. I'd say the scup, seabass, and fluke have made a good little come-back the past few years. But who really is to say?

Years ago you could get all you wanted around the piers and rivers in Boston Harbour. You could fill a trash bag with them up to 3 lbs or so at the parking lot of the Milton Yaught Club not many people fished for them. They are very soft but not bad eating. I'm not sure if they are around have not fished for them in many years.

Canalratt--just dug this fact up: a century ago 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of tomcod were harvested yearly in the Charles River tributary to boston harbor.

Interesting fish topic to read up on. Thanks for breaking up my lunch hour. If I'm not mistaken, I think I remember Quint making reference to "catchin' Tomcod in the pond" in Jaws, but I never gave it a second thought.

these fish must have anti-freeze for blood.

Used to catch Tomcod in somerset Ma. back in the 70s when i lived near the Brayton point power plant. We would catch em in the late fall on minnows rigged to a bobber. Lots of fun when we were kids. Always called them tommycod back then. Good to eat and there were plenty of them. Those were the days....

I used to catch them along the walls of harbors down here in Ct when I was a kid, you could even spear them with an eel spear back then if the water was clear enough.
They are still around because I met a guy who actually traps them, he leaves a trap along the wall with NO BAIT, they come in presumably to spawn looking for little caves in the wall, and go into the trap.
They are really tasty imo, but I do let the females go.
Bill