Cod Fishing

[Fly Rod]

Cod fishing has been excellent off of Cape Ann the past couple of weeks!!! <br /><br />Friends of mine that have been going, have been fishing close to shore and catching some fish weighing over 50lbs!!! This area had been closed to commercial fishing for a couple of months, but now opened today, the 1st of Dec. !!! If the gill netters were able to get out to set their nets, the area of good fishing will be cluttered with gill nets and the good fishing will plummet in a couple of days!!!!

 

[rolmops]

Re: Cod Fishing

Hello Flyrod.<br />I wish I had the time to go and hop on Kevin Tomble's boat to enjoy a few hours of this spectacle. Seeing the pics he puts on his website makes me very unsettled.<br />Is commercial line and rod fishing for cod allowed in these waters in November?? It would be easy to pull a few hundred pounds in a days work.<br />So far this winter weather has caused me to buy a new penn 330gti and a penn sable wireline rod.I think it is time to make these toys earn their keep!!

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: Cod Fishing

Hello rolmops!!! <br /><br />Yes commercial fishing in the area that the recreational fishermen were fishing opened up the 1st of December, including rod and reel!!! it has been closed for a couple of months to the commercials!!! Now, believe it or not, you will be lucky to catch fish in that area now!!! The gill netters have the area littered like a mine field with nets!!! "Gillnetting should be band in State waters"<br /><br />Don't be fooled!! It is not easy to haul in a few hundred pounds of cod after the gillnetters get there!!! They devastate the area, by the many nets that they put in an area and they sour the bottom when they throw the by catch over board and rots on the bottom!!!<br /><br />Also starting Dec. 1st thru March 1st recreational fishermen are allowed 5 cod per person per day!!!<br /><br />Kevin and I and other charter captains apply and get written permission to charter in closed areas, where commercial fishermen can't go, and we are never allowed to sell our catch while in this program!!! And in turn when we leave this program we are also banned from selling fish for one month after!!! An exsample: I apply and get a 90 day exemption to recreational fish in a closed area, I'm exempted from commercial fishing 120 days, they tact on an extra 30 days!!!<br /><br />I hope I answered your questions!!! <br /><br />Forgot one other thing !!! The area that was closed was below the 4230 line which goes from saturdaynight ledge south to cape cod!!! Everything from gloucester to maine was and is open till March and then everything from cape cod to the canadian border is closed and then starts opening from capecod in May and does not open here till July 1st!!! It is getting so ,thst you need a lawyer to fiqure all the rules and regulations!!!