Bonus Whale Breaks Water!

Two hooks. Two fish! I agreed to take our oldest boy on a cod fishing trip and he asked if his friend could accompany us. I quickly extended the invitation and made reservations for three with the Yankee fleet. The Yankee fleet is home ported in Gloucester Ma., with a division that sails south to the dry Tortugas in the winter to give the 'snowbirds' a taste of home. Our reservations were for Friday the fourteen of April with sailing time of seven a.m. We arrived an hour and a half early and were not the first there but early enough to select our preferred spot.

The captain sails on time and it was about a ninety minute ride to the fishing area. The ride gives you plenty of time to rig up and have what you brought for breakfast so that when the captain gives the start fishing announcement, your rig is headed for the bottom. The bottom here is about one hundred seventy five feet. We were using a twelve ounce treble hooked jig and a teaser hook threaded with a green black and yellow colored plastic baits secured two feet above that. This combination proved deadly as we caught in excess of a hundred cod with forty seven keepers among us which must be at least twenty one inches long. The key to this kind of fishing is presentation of the lure. The jig must touch bottom with every rapid lowering of the rod tip so that it comes off the bottom as near vertical as possible . this requires many crankups to reset the lure into proper presentation. When this happened it usually resulted in an immediate strike and you wound this fish and probably his buddy up to the surface and hopefully land a keeper. For every ten fish caught, four were keepers and we were quite satisfied. We had a lot of six to eight pound fish and a couple of ten pounders.

The star of the day for me was the whales. They came up for a blow right beside us! They stayed around most of the day with visits from some dolphins during the whales absence. The whales decided to swim under the boat from where we were located, in the stern. Now the classic fishing tale goes my sons friend had a whale and lost it! Well its true you see, the whales snagged five people and took all of our neighbors line out ! Sons friend is lucky as the whales slid by only snagging him for a few seconds and even left him with his fish still on. At that point I wanted to be a "photo- tar" rather than a fisherman for the look on his face was priceless. His reel was doing five hundred miles an hour and all I could do was laugh.

I can recommend fishing with the Yankee fleet as they are courteous and professional, know the waters well and are knowledgeable about the areas wildlife. Great day , lots of laughs and LOTS of fish.

Glenn

Fishing CT

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