I welcomed the Manny Silva party aboard the Lady Diane on Friday morning at 0600. These gentlemen had driven over six and one half hours to come fishing with me so I planned to pull out all the stops in order to find the fish they wanted. These gentleman are very experienced fisherman so I knew that I could push hard all day and they would be ready to put the "hammer down" once we found them.
We rounded Eastern Point in Gloucester Harbor and found the seas as calm as an inland lake. I powered up to cruising speed, 26 knots, and headed for the bank. With the tide running out I went to a spot that usually funnels the fish on their travels. The sounder indicated good amounts of bait in the area and fish underneath. Jigs were dropped and immediately taken. As has been the course this season short cod were hungry and eager to bite. A shift into deeper water produced the first keepers of the day and we proceeded to move around and put some nice markets in the box.
As the tide turned I decided to explore and area I had never fished. Unfortunately today the fish were not there so I steamed south to the area I fished on Wednesday hoping that some of the nice haddock we have been taking there, were still around. Upon arrival, the guys drop their 17oz jigs and were immediately hooked up. Beautiful silvery haddock in the 5-8 lb class starting coming aboard. Mixed in with the haddock were some of the biggest markets we had taken today. At one point I dropped a bait rig to see if the haddock would oblige but again today bait was ignored ..jigs were the ticket.
Around 1400 we started heading toward the north but before we headed in I stopped one more time after my sounder lit up...I just had to see what was there. The three jigs never made it to the bottom and double header market cod came over the rails. Although many of these were in the 21-23" inch range, we managed to put 5 more keepers in the box to finish the day. I am hoping a body of larger fish will find this bait in the near future...if they do I will be there!
Back at the dock the guys had all they could do to lift their 170 quart cooler into their truck as it was full of bags of cod and haddock fillets. Although they had a long ride ahead I am sure the memory of today's action kept them wide awake.
The time to fish is when they are here and now is the time to go out and HAMMER THEM!
