Finally managed to get a few people (me, my brother, and his coworker) together for a cod trip w/ Capt. Ronnie (Blackhull Charters currently out of Captain's Cove in Quincy) on Saturday.
The seas were glass smooth on the way out and it looked like I read the marine forecast right for once, but once we got out there, it was a bit rough. The 28' downeast hull gave a nice smooth ride while under way, but when sitting in one place to fish a spot, the bigger than forecast waves smacked the side of the boat and caused it to tilt sharply (wouldn't have mattered what size boat you were on that day) so you end up smacking into parts of the boat and getting sore legs from balancing yourself..
We still had a steady pick of fish so the rougher than expected seas weren't too much of an issue except for making my brother barf a few times. Everyone ended up with roughly 3-4 keepers from the shorts that we threw back (maybe a 1:1 ratio). My personal score ended up being 3 keepers, 1 short, and 3 dropped that felt pretty small.
There was plenty of elbow room on this trip so Capt Ronnie helped hook cod for us to fight (the boat has a nice side panel than can be flipped open so you can fish and steer at the same time). Capt Ronnie was wondering if we had a pool set up but we didn't because we were just planning on splitting the fish. Shortly thereafter, Capt Ronnie showed us why you don't let the captain in on the pool
and hauled up the behemoth (we were all busy fighting other fish) you see in the pictures...it was weighed in at 34# and 42"
It's something you don't see much any more with all the trawling nowadays.
I'm surprised how much a workout cod fishing is. We ended up using 24oz jigs on Shimano Trevala rods (great rods, but you'd think they'd glue on the butt caps better) and Torium reels. After foul hooking two of my keepers, my noodle like arms turned into wet noodles and I could barely get my left arm to hold up a water bottle or squeeze it by the end of the trip.
Before we headed back, we jigged up a bunch of mackeral to see if we could find any stripers in the harbor to feed them too. Unfortunately, we were probably a week early, but the mackeral tasted amazing for dinner Saturday night. Cut the tiny fillets out, trim off any red meat, cut the fillets in half to get rid of the pin bones, dredge it in flour, and fry in oil/butter. Sushi mackeral is always pickled despite showing up as "sashimi" on the menu so it has a horribly fishy taste I've never liked. Truly fresh mackeral has a taste probably 1/5th as mackeral sushi tasting and was slightly sweet...it's no wonder bass like them. They also are iridescent and look almost like x-mas ornaments when fresh. The cod cheeks from the behemoth tasted great cooked the same way (slightly smoother tasting then cod fillets but with a scallop texture), but the mackeral was far better tasting (cod are for people who don't like the taste of fish
If you still want to fill the freezer w/ cod meat, there's still time before the trawler season opens on the 1st (Capt Ronnie doesn't go out for cod after their season starts but he does striper and tuna trips in the summer).
It was a great time w/ a great crew, and Max knew the canal would blow open on Monday morning too
Wish my arms and legs were working enough to hit the canal this morning, but I probably would have ended up falling on the rocks and getting more bruises...time for
before tuna season...
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