I took off from chartering as I wanted to have a chance to take some family fishing during the Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday, my nephew Tom Tenbroeck and I headed offshore in search of some cod. The last time Tom came out was in October 2009 and after a half hour of fishing on Jeffreys a strong NW wind came up and it took us nearly 3 hours to get home. It was a trip we will both remember and I sure hoped for better conditions today.

I planned on fishing two different areas I had not fished this year. We steamed about 45 minutes to the grounds and dropped our jigs to the bottom around 0645 (we decided to fish gentlemen hours on this trip). Tom struck first blood and boat a nice 20lb steaker and as the morning progressed we continue to take great cod between 15 and 25lbs. You had to be patient as the cod were not on a feeding frenzy but my machine told me they were there. Of course we both hung fish that were much bigger, judged by the way my 80 class rods bent, but when fishing deep water sometimes those big whales find a way to pull off. This wasn’t a big problem as we had decided to only keep fish to 25lbs and throw any big whales , as this is the spawning season. I would rather take a picture of those big girls and them let them swim away to do their thing as they are the future to rebuilding the cod fish stocks.

Speaking of photos….I took some great shots, including video, on this trip but for some reason my camera stored them in main memory and not on the flash card. Once I figure out how to retrieve them off my camera I will embellish this report with them.

With 15 great cod in the box I decided to try the other area around 1000. It was about another 10 mile run to the grounds which gave us time to relax and recover. I haven’t jigged that much in a couple years as when running charters I don’t have the time to fish extensively. It was fun having a chance to get back to what I love to do but I found out how out of shape my arms and wrists were.

On the next spot we found some slammer pollack and big codfish holding in 300’+ of water. We limited out on cod and put a couple dozen nice pollack in the boat as well. One haddock found its way to the deck as we were not really fishing good bottom for the bugeyes. I do know an area where the bite was on but by 1300 we had had enough and headed for the barn. I put the Lady Diane on autopilot, Tom served as lookout and I filleted today’s catch. 

As we approached Thatchers storm clouds appeared so I let Tommy take the helm as the lobster pots were too thick for running on AP and I finished the cutting. Just as we secured lines in our slip and good rain storm opened up but no lightening was in the area. We washed the Lady down and packed 150 lbs of fillet in the coolers for the ride home. Not a bad catch for only 2 fishermen on the boat!

On Sunday, Tom’s family (wife Kim and sons Jake and Nathan) and my wife, Diane, headed out to see if we could find the boys some mackerel to fish on. We left the dock at noon and headed out to the Groaner (buoy at the entrance to Gloucester Harbor). Being a holiday weekend the boat traffic was heavy and the mackerel schools were scattered. I went to a couple different areas and after finding no takers we decided to go in on the rocks to see if we could find some schoolies.

Tom is an avid striper fisherman so it didn’t take long for him to coax a nice bass onto his top water offering. After the hookup, Jake manned the rod  and after an “intense” battle he landed his first striper ever. The fish taped out at 26” so after a few photos of the proud fisherman and his family we released the little guy to fight another day. 

We continued to work the shoreline but the tide went slack and with the sun high in the sky we had no more takers. Even though the catching was slow the fishing was great with all the family on board enjoying one of the most beautiful days we have had this season weather wise this year.

Once back at the dock Tom and his family headed for home as on Memorial Day the boys were marching in parades with their scout troops. I myself took 120 of my favorite band kids down Main Street in Billerica for the 38^th time in my career as we honored America in Memorial Day celebrations.

And so ended a great family weekend of fishing fun. Next weekend it is back to business as the cod fishing is great and the tuna have shown big time in our waters. On every cod trip I bring a couple rods in case Charlie shows…if we hook up and land them that’s a bonus for you. Let’s go get em!!!