This past weekend the cod fishing proved to be challenging. We traveled 32 miles from our dock in search of cod and haddock. The first day, there was a lot of fish being caught but only 1 out of ten or even twelve were keeper size cod. The new regulations that came out May 1st has the keeper sized cod at 21inches most of the cod that were caught by very experienced crew were 19-20 inches.

The group must have caught over 150 fish in total, but most of them were what I would call “Wednesdays keepers.” Wednesday April 30th the size limit was 19″. The haddock fishing was pretty much the same on the first day.
The second day was a bit better. The cod were a little bit bigger and the catch to keeper ratio went down to maybe 1-7. The haddock fishing was much better the second day. Yet again, the National Marine Fisheries Regulators changed the Haddock regulations as of May 1st, 2014. We went from an unlimited keeper amount of haddock at 21 inches to three haddock per person at 21 inches. Our hard working crew did manage to get our limit of haddock in the boat and a bunch of keeper cod.

I don’t think the fishing results have anything to do with the efforts of the boat and the crew fishing. I think the problems we are experiencing are the same as the commercial fishermen are experiencing with the cod and haddock fishing. Fishing regulators have made some poor choices in the past and the fisheries are struggling. The mismanagement of our offshore cod and haddock fisheries has lead to very challenging times ahead I’m afraid. This year it is hitting the offshore party charter fishing fleet hard.

So with that off my mind lets look to our inshore fishing.
Our inshore trips are getting ready to go and early reports look great. The flounder fishing is good and should be getting better every day. I am also expecting the Striped bass to arrive if they haven’t all ready. I have been seeing schools of bait on our journeys offshore. The bait should be moving in and the striped bass to follow. We will have some inshore reports next week