FRIGID MIDWINTER COD FISHING

By

Gene LaFrance

I’m a believer. I firmly believe, if you live long enough, you will be in the right place, at the right time, when the fishing experience of a lifetime will fall perfectly in place around you. For me, the first pieces of such an outstanding fishing experience began falling into place on January 28, 2009. I received an e-mail message from Capt. Kevin Twombly, of KAYMAN CHARTERS, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Capt. Kevin’s message was brief, it simply said: “Court has overturned Framework 42. Hooray!! Large..Large..and plenty of them.. Cod are lingering in the Kayman Hot spot!! Two openings this Sat the 31^{st. Sunday is open boat as well.. Trips are $225 ea. Boat leaves at 6am returns 23PM Call 508 577 0541 to reserve Thanks Capt Kevin.” Would I be interested in going cod fishing that coming weekend? Like that lady from Alaska said, who described herself as a pit bull wearing lipstick, “You betcha!” I immediately called Capt. Kevin. After a brief discussion on the phone, Capt. Kevin suggested Sunday, February 1St, might be my better option, taking into consideration the ever changing weather and Gulf of Maine sea conditions. I signed on for Capt. Kevin’s Sunday trip.} 

I left my home, Fort Apache, Sunday morning, February 1St, at 0230 hours, for the one hundred and fifty mile run to Gloucester, Massachusetts. The temperature was 13 degrees Fahrenheit above zero at my home. Snow showers had been passing through the area all day Saturday. Driving east on the Massachusetts Turnpike early Sunday morning, was uneventful. There is no heavy truck traffic on the road on Sunday, for many of the businesses that would be receiving such truck traffic in the eastern part of the state, Boston in particular, are closed on Sundays. In the eighty miles I was driving east on the Pike, I met and passed only three other motor vehicles! I did run into snow squalls three times. This would be another “First” for me…. I’ve hunted deer when it has been snowing. I have been ice fishing when it has been snowing, but I have never been fishing on the Gulf of Maine in the wintertime when it had been snowing! There is a first time for everything, I guess……….

I arrived at the dock are at 0500 hours. My charter was to leave port at 0600 hours. No one else was around. I off loaded all my fishing tackle and related fishing gear from the car and set out to put it on board the boat, docked a lonely three hundred yards away. It was cold. Nineteen degrees above zero Fahrenheit. A stiff breeze was blowing. It was spitting snow. Not a good and welcome scene. Everything had the promise of a tough, hard day at sea. I was not to be disappointed in that respect.

Climbing over the rails to get on board Capt. Kevin’s boat, I stepped onto a deck covered with more than a half an inch of ice and in some places, piles of snow a foot high. Tough on footing, that is for sure! Soon after I got on board and took up my rail position where I planned to fish that day, another fishermen showed up. Soon Capt. Kevin and his mate, Mark, arrived, as well as the other four fishermen. Capt. Kevin started up the engines on his boat, turned the heaters on inside the boat’s cabin, and instructed us to stay inside the cabin, out of the way, while he and his mate cleared the boat’s deck of ice and snow. Pounded with the blades of heavy duty snow shovels, the ice sheet covering the metal decks broke up and could be shoveled overboard into the water. With the deck clear of ice, the captain hosed sea water over the deck. In my old age, I learned a new trick! The sea water was warmer than the air and the metal deck, plus the fact sea water contains salt. It takes colder temperatures to freeze saltwater, than it takes to freeze freshwater. Saltwater flowing over the decks would prevent ice from forming on the aluminum plate of the deck. A neat trick!

Capt. Kevin pulled away from the dock minutes after 0600 hours. There was no boat traffic in sight anywhere in the Gloucester harbor area. Gloucester is one of Massachusetts’ two major commercial fishing ports and is located north of Boston, in the northeastern corner of the state. When our boat motored across the relatively calm seas of Gloucester’s inner harbor and passed the protective harbor sea walls, our boat encountered the open seas of the Gulf of Maine. Though it was no longer spitting snow, the wind was blowing, the seas were running high and rough. The boat charged into the oncoming waves. The boat was taking a pounding. So was everyone on board the craft! You could not hope to stand on your feet without hanging onto some part of the boat all the time. Better to be seated. Better yet, lay down! I staggered below deck and fell into one of the five bunks the boat has below deck in its bow area. I elected to try and get some rest while the boat motored two or more hours out to the area where we would be fishing that day. It is tough to sleep, with ice cold sea water hammering on a metal hull, six inches away from ones skull! I did get some badly needed rest. I even managed to doze off from time to time.

Just about 0800 hours, the continuous roar of the boat’s diesels suddenly slowed to a soft growl. That was a sure sign we had arrived at our fishing grounds! Time to get topside and prepare for a day of fishing. I approached Capt. Kevin. Would we be anchoring or drifting? DRIFTING! Fishing with bait or jigs? JIGS! How deep would the water be? 200 to 215 FEET! Would we be after haddock and pollock? COD! Time to finish rigging up my tackle and take my fishing position at the rail. Our day of fishing on the Gulf of Maine in the wintertime, was about to begin!

At exactly 0817 hours, I was taking notes on the back of my left hand, Capt. Kevin gave the instructions to, “Start fishing! We are right over a big school of cod!” It was bitterly cold. The wind was blowing. The seas were wickedly rough. Footing was tough to keep. I wedged myself into a port corner of the cabin and the boat’s railing and literally hung on for dear life. I was dressed for the north Pole, including heavy winter mittens, which had soft wool inner linings and a waterproof outer shell. One could not expose ones hands and fingers to the bitter cold temperatures for even minutes, without ones fingers becoming painfully cold and numb. This kind of winter cod fishing is NOT a fun experience. It is hard, bitterly cold work and is not an exercise for the weak at heart!

I watched my line “free spool” off my reel, as my sixteen ounce jig headed for the bottom of the ocean, 200 feet below me at that point in time. The jig hit bottom. I locked the spool in place on my reel and made my first “lift” of my jig. I raised the rod tip three feet….and nearly had the rod taken out of my hands by a wickedly hard hit! FISH ON! I was into my first fish of the 2009 saltwater fishing season. I was not alone. From the shouts of my fishing companions and taking in the scene from the corner of my left eye, my five fishing companions had hooked into fish, too! My eight foot long “Penn Power Stick” had a serious bend in it. I was hooked into a heavy cod fish. I worked at bringing the fish to the surface from the bottom of the sea below me. The big cod was most reluctant to leave the safety of its bottom habitat and environment! Many minutes later, peering intently and anxiously into the angry seas churning directly below me, I saw my first glimpse of “color”, the flashing white and brown of my struggling fish! I shouted to the mate, “I’ve got color!” The mate quickly came to my left side, armed with a short gaff. My large cod broke the surface of the sea and was instantly and expertly gaffed by the mate. A thirty-five pound cod hit the deck with a resounding “THUD”! Hurrah!! My first very good fish of the day! My first fish of the 2009 saltwater fishing season! There are times, when a humble man can come to a simple conclusion that, Life can be very, very good…………

Capt. Kevin had put six fishermen into a heavy concentration of cod. We fished very aggressively, continuously, except for the many times when our boat had drifted off the schooled concentration of cod fish, when the captain would crank up the engines on his boat and motor back up into the wind and current to start another slow drift over the school of fish. At 1112 hours, just under three hours after we had started fishing, Capt. Kevin instructed us to reel in our jigs. We were done fishing for the day. We would be heading back to port, several hours in miles and distance away. We were going back to port and home, after a very successful day’s catch of cod fish! Life, to a fisherman, doesn’t get any better than this! To a fisherman, a successful day of fishing is better than the Red Sox, the Patriots, even good sex! I had experienced a day of cod fishing like only the Fickle Finger of Fate and God, could make possible. I was most thankful.

My February 1St, Sunday’s fishing trip proved to be one of the best saltwater fishing experiences of my life! In less than three hours of fishing, six fishermen had each caught their legal federal limits of ten cod fish. The six of us had caught over 1,100 pounds (approximate live weight) of cod! I came off the boat with two large bags of cod fillets that weighed fifty-eight pounds! A very good day’s catch of fish! The day’s fishing was not an inexpensive outing. With all the cost factors taken into consideration, my Sunday’s outing was close to a $350.00 fishing trip. But, with cod selling at the local seafood market for $10.99 a pound for fillets and $11.99 for the allegedly better quality “Captain’s Cut”, the theoretical value of the bounty of my two bags of cod fillets, more than covered the cost of my trip and its associated trials and tribulations!

KAYMAN CHARTERS is a very special breed of cat amongst the run-of-the-mill feline fishing fleet catering to recreational fishermen. Right up front and personal, KAYMAN CHARTERS offers serious fishing possibilities, for serious fishermen. Personally, I feel, if your idea of a day of fishing out on the Gulf of Maine is to try and drink Budweiser out of a day’s production of beer, I would suggest you stay home! KAYMAN CHARTERS is not your kind of boat! Capt. Kevin offers his clients a very unique fishing trip option; all the fishermen on board his boats share the day’s catch equally. Capt. Kevin dictates uncommon terminal tackle on his boats. So his fishermen do not loose fishing time when the terminal tackle of two or more fishermen gets tangled together, the captain requires six foot long leaders, connected to main fishing lines with heavy duty snap swivels. Tangled leaders are simply snapped free, to be untangled later, while new leaders are snapped into place. This system makes sense to me! Speaking for myself, I use 80 pound test super braid main line, 150 pound test “TripleFish” leader material, coupled together with 195 pound test “SPRO” power ball bearing swivels with two welded rings and “Coast Lock” snaps. I feel super braid lines dictate a level line reel, to lay the line down uniformly across the surface of a spool. Old OCEAN CITY saltwater reels are my preferred choice of level line reel. OCEAN CITY made a reel that drove its level line system independently off is back side plate, whereas most of your other reel manufacturers tied their level wind systems into their main gear drive systems on their front side plates. I build up the usually small diameter arbors/spindles of my level wind reels with layers of thick, clear plastic tubing, “bulking up” the base on which my super braid is being laid down on. This little “trick” saves wasting at least 100 yards of expensive super braid line from being used as nothing more than a spool “filler”. A light action/duty OCEAN CITY saltwater level line reel, even with its spindle/arbor built up to an inch in diameter, will still hold hundreds of yards of super braid line! My tackle system has worked for me, but every fisherman should really be guided by Capt. Kevin’s years of practical experience, not mine!

In closing, I can say from personal experience, KAYMAN CHARTERS and “Tight Lines!”, go together like the stars and stripes on the flag of the United States of America!

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