I took my good friend Tony and his two sons, TJ and Chris, out today for a day of ground fishing. We departed Hampton Harbor at 0600 and headed for the inshore grounds looking to see if any of the whale cod were in a mood to bite. Tony has been on the boat many times but this is the first time his boys were able to come out and try their luck at cod fishing. I always enjoy introducing new anglers to jigging for ground fish and after a quick lesson in how we handle the equipment the guys sent jigs sailing to the bottom. The area we fished was where the day before another friend of mine put a 74.5 lb monster cod in the boat...so our hopes were high.
We fished the area for about two hours and while we did maneged to get one small keeper I decided that it was time to head offshore in search of more active fish. The problem with the inshore grounds is these fish are there spawning and not there to eat. Some days they will hit jigs simply out of aggression but it is really a be there at the right time fishery. Today was not the time.
We steamed offshore ten miles or so and immediately found a school of nice market cod who were on the bite. Tony and the boys hooked up consistently and before long nice fish in the 8-15 lb class were in the box. While not the hottest bite ever it was pretty consistent though out the day and the guys did very well considering this was their first real experience at jig fishing for cod.
Smiles by all are what a Captain likes to see at the end of a trip.
We arrived back at the dock at 1600 and loaded 45lbs of cod fillet into the coolers..a great day to be on the water and a good time was had by all.
