Here is the fishing first.
Fishing was okay…not spectacular and pretty species poor. If it was just a couple of weeks earlier, it may have been better. I only had a total of 16 hours of fishing time (not including boat travel time) so I guess the results were not too bad. There may have been better chances for Little Tunny from shore and more of a Haddock bite on the boat. It was a transition time so the Cod was winding down and the Pollock has not arrived in good number yet. But the Tautog was there and they were hungry even though I didn’t have any green crabs for bait.
Oct 10, 2011 – Yankee Fleet full day, Gloucester
Boat rental rod: 7', 30-50 class conventional rod stiff enough to fish a 20oz weight, a rusty and jerky 4/0 Penn Senator filled with 50lb mono and frozen clam bait, fished on dropper loop with a 5/0 circle hook about 12" from the sinker
We fished the Stellwegan Bank about 20 miles offshore in 220 to 265 feet of water! That's a long way to crank on a jerky 4/0 Penn Senator!
**Fishing 50lb mono and a stiff rod in 200+ feet of water sucks. Bite detection is basically nil for a newbie to fishing this deep and this heavy!
Tusk…locally called cusk (Brosme brosme) Species #202
Also caught a Picked Dogfish which the deckhand shook off before I can take a picture
New fishing friend who is a proton accelerator senior technician at Mevion
Oct 11, 2011 – Woods Hole Stone Pier
Two rigs:
Rig #1: 7', 30-50lb rated, 1-3oz casting range, 3-piece travel boat rod from TFO, Shimano Cardiff 301 with 50lb Sufix braid, 6 feet of 40lb rub leader tied as dropper loop, 6" of 40lb hook leader to a #8 baitholder hook and a 3oz bank sinker. I fished this rig on bottom or near the stone pier with live sandworms.
Rig #2: 9', 10-25lb rated, 3/4-2.5oz casting range, 4-piece travel spinning rod from TFO, Pflueger Solara 4035 with 30lb Sufix braid, 4 feet of 15lb mono leader tied to a 1oz Kastmaster.
Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) A little 2lb snapper blue during a blitz on a 1oz Kastmaster!!!
**Casting to baitfish flying out of the water was way cool!!!
Little Tunny aka False Albacore (Euthynnus alletteratus) I actually saw a small blitz out of casting range…apparently we were a couple of days too late…one casualty of the action…
Switched to live sandworms
Scup (Stenotomus chrysops) Caught a number of small ones…they were out of season
Cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus) Species #203…caught too many of these
Tautog (Tautoga onitis) Species #204…my top shore fishing target and I caught at least 8 of them!
**People say tautog bites are hard to detect...not so for me. They actually clamp down on bait pretty hard. People also say tautog's bony mouths are hard to hook...but I would say all the bites I suspected as a tautog hit I had hooked and landed all of them. I was using a #8 baitholder hook...while most people suggest using larger #2 to 1/0 hooks when fishing green crabs. Maybe the larger hooks are harder for the fish to take in...and the way the crabs are rigged on the hooks meant the hooks are pointed outward and sideways, making hooking the tautog much harder. If you want tautogs, you need to fish way tight to rocks!!!
Stone Pier
Oct 22, 2011 - Yankee Fleet full day, Gloucester
We fished Stellwegan Bank from 220 to 270 feet of water!
Boat rental rod: 7', 30-50 class conventional rod stiff enough to fish a 20oz weight,
My own Daiwa Saltist BG40 filled with 65lb Sufix briad with about 200 feet of 40lb Berkley Big Game mono
Frozen clam bait, fished on dropper loop with a 5/0 circle hook about 12" from the sinker.
**Switching the boat rental jerky, slow 4/0 Penn Senator with 50lb mono to a smooth, 6.4:1 Saltist with 40lb mono and even a little bit of braid fished made a big difference. It took much less time cranking up the rig to change out bait, and the lighter mono + the little bit of braid fished allowed for much better bite detection! If you ever decide to do this, I would recommend even fishing only a 50 feet mono top shot and run braid the rest of it (to please the captain and mates...because tangles are often guaranteed when dogfish are around). If I had used my Saltist on the first trip on Oct 10, maybe I would have caught a few more fish!
**I also learned that keeping the rig on bottom at ALL times increase the number of bites. This is pretty intuitive really, but the captains and mates told everyone to drop the rig to the bottom and then take 4-5 cranks up. I did this on the first trip and the first drift of the second trip. Yeah...the sinker would bounce on bottom occasionally, but it is NOT on bottom! Most of the bites came on bottom for me...and after a while, I decided to ignore what the captain and mates suggested...and made sure my sinker is always on bottom AND NOT BOUNCING! Somehow, I get more bites by doing this. The boat would rock and roll...but I used my rod to adjust to the change in height...point it down as the boat rolled up, and pulling it up at an angle to the side as the boat lowers. This let me keep the sinker on bottom but I still had a tight line to detect even the quickest bite...which got me way more bites and a few more fish than the first trip!
Picked Dogfish (Squalus acanthias) Species #205…these guys get annoying after a while! They twist and circle after getting hook and often tangle up multiple lines. At one point we had a whole school of them under the boat and we had the whole boat in tangles…took an hour to sort that out!
Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) Species #206…my top deep water target! Finally got three on my second boat trip! Two were short…and the only keeper I got was not gaffed in time because the deckhands were too busy untangling line!
One inch short!
Two inches short…
And some parts of Boston, Gloucester and Woods Hole through my eyes…
Oct 9, 2011 - Boston
After a bit of luggage delay scare I was finally dropped off the luggage at South Station for temporary storage. It was about 12pm when I started my Boston half-day tour.
Museum of Fine Arts
Old South Church tower
Boston Public Library
Now the start of the Freedom Trail
Park Street Church
Massachusetts State House
Museum of African-American History
Beacon Hill neighbourhood
Paul Revere Burial
Franklin at Old City Hall
Old State House
Faneuil Hall
Quincy Market
Lobster roll and clam chowder
Exchange of the keys
Traffic Tunnel Administration Building and a commemoration of Boston’s mayor
Tudor Wharf (Boston Harbour)
USS Constitution
Bunker Hill Monument
William Prescott
294 steep steps up Bunker Hill Monument…
…to an original cannon and the view that troops saw
Totally tired after walking the Freedom Trail in 3 hours
Other pictures…
Oct 10, 2011 - Gloucester
Gloucester Harbour morning
Gloucester Harbour evening
Low tide
Oct 12 – 21, 2011 – Woods Hole Optical Microscopy Course
Everyday started at 8:30am and most days ended at 11pm at the earliest…with one day we were in the lab working on a problem set until 3:30am. It was an intense course…but as you will see in the pictures, we also had a lot of fun drinking and otherwise.
Beer central
Party time!
Free afternoon at Martha’s Vineyard
Vineyard’s Haven, Martha’s Vineyard
Biking around Martha’s Vineyard
Beach, Martha’s Vineyard…looks soooo fishy!!!
Lobster dinner
My crew
My roommate Andrew’s birthday and his “Facebook Wall” we drew for him…because he hates getting birthday wishes on Facebook LOL
Totally overworked and partied out
Just some Woods Hole scenery
Eel Pond
Gallery by the drawbridge
Someone I'll not forget...that's all I'll say about it...although from Day 1 we have declared everything will be platonic...and we didn't cross any major lines...
It was a great trip! I learned a lot at the microscopy course, I met a bunch of great fellow students, instructors and commercial reps that offers me a great network and I even managed to catch some fish!
I’ll be visiting MA in the future again…there are still some fish that needs to be caught!!!
