I welcomed aboard Kevin Burnett and his wife Joan and son Drew for a day of cod fishing on the Gulf of Maine.  When I arrived at the dock at 0330 I noticed the hotel's flag was straight out with a fair NW breeze already blowing.  The Burnetts hail from Indiana and had not fished on the ocean before.  I was concerned if the wind strengthened it might make for a very uncomfortable day for everyone on board.  When the crew arrived we agreed I would take a look outside to see what the conditions were like and if it was too rough we would opt for Plan B and do some inshore bass fishing in the lee of the land.

As I rounded eastern point I found a small chop of 1-2' waves within a half mile of land.  Since we were still in the lee I asked Kevin if he wanted to give it a try and he said lets go offshore and see what its like.  I decided to run to the north to an area that I had caught fish in the past and it was the closest spot I could bring them and still have a decent shot at cod.  The farther we went offshore the rougher it got but the wind was at our backs for now and the crew was hanging in there.

We I arrived on the grounds I broke out the drift anchor and with the bow pointed into the seas the boat stablized nicely.  I broke out a jig rod and showed the crew how to operate the equipment.  Release the clutch, thumb on the spool, hit bottom, engage the clutch, jig the rod like this....FISH ON!...I gave the rod to Joan and in a few minutes a beautiful 10 white belly market cod hit the deck

...go get em guys.

For the next 2 hours it was the some of the best cod fishing I have seen all year both in quantity and quality.  The fish ran between 8 and 20 lbs and we put 30+ in the box during that time.  Drew really impressed me with his technique.  He was constantly hooked up and he never tried to horse a fish in and therefore never pulled a hook.  Eventhough he had not fished salt I could see he was a very experienced natural fisherman.  I consider myself a pretty good teacher but some things you cannot teach.  Drew has a natural instinct on how to hook and land a fish and I recognized it immediately.

Not to be out done Dad showed he also had some skill and boat many great markets like these!

The conditions during this time were pretty rough with 3-5' seas and a stiff 25knt+ wind blowing from the NW.  When I needed to resest the drift everyone took cover in the stern and the Lady Diane got a good power wash as she took the seas head on.  The boat handled beautifully and fortunately we only needed short runs to reset.  When the tide changed the fishing slowed and huge 3-4' mama dogs found us.  I decided to move about a mile north to get away from them and it worked.  We set up on another pile of fish and finished out the boat limit of 40 cod by 1200.  Along the way we got about a half dozen pollack and one nice 5lb haddock (we were not on haddock bottom so this was a surprise). 

The crew decided to head in as the seas had layed down a little but not to the point where I could go searching farther for haddock or pollack. The ride in was bearable until we reached within a couple miles of land where the NW wind was blowing 30knts+.  Luckily we were n the lee of the land by this time and the seas were a confused 2-3' chop.  I decided to stop in the harbor and let the crew see how lobsters are caught by pulling a couple traps.  It was so windy that I had all I could do to get Drew close enough to the buoy so he could snag it before we blew by. The second trap held a nice 2lb male so I showed how we measure, and band the beasts!

We arrived back on the dock at 1430 and for the next hour I filleted the catch as I could not fillet on the way in due to sea conditions.  The family came back after a quick lunch and we loaded over 160lbs of filet into their car.  I really enjoyed fishing with the Burnetts today as not only were they nice folks but they hung in on there in tough conditions and caught a ton of great fish.  I hope I get to another chance to fish with them in the future.

I keep trying to tell everyone ground fishing is GREAT all season long and today proved it.  By the way did I mention we caught these fish in 140' of water!  I am open this weekend so give me a call and lets go stick some...otherwise I will be forced to go commercial tuna fishing...What A LIfe I Have!!!!

TIght Lines,

Capt George