I had yesterday off and decided to get out on the water with the Yankee Fleet cod boat out of Gloucester. Boat sailed at 7 and was packed. Amazing day on the water. Fantastic weather and the fishing was pretty good.
First few drifts brought up consistent shorts...I must have had 20 shorts (all 20-23"--many would have been legal in RI) before I caught my first keeper. There were several times when I'd drop the jig down make one jig with the rod and have a double on.
The action was consistent all day. Cod were full of herring and sand eels. Bait didn't catch a thing--all jigs.
I ended the day with 9 keeper cod--all nice fish. The added bonus was the whales. Must have been 15 of them around the boat at one point. Pretty cool to watch them feed.
The boat must have had at least 500 keeper cod on it. We had to sit outside the breakwater for 2 hours while the mates filleted all the fish--that was the only bummer of the day.
Big fish was 26lbs.