Maine Cod Fishing Regs 2012: In a nutshell, For the 2012 season, both federal and state officials have adopted regulations to lessen the overall recreational catch of Atlantic Cod...For those of us who fish the nearshore waters for these tasty bottom fish, these new regs are not a bad thing, By reducing the minimum size from 24" back to 19" as it was a few years ago we will now be able to much more easily & quickly catch our limit of Cod. To go along with this the bag limit has also been reduced from 10 fish to 9 fish a pretty good trade off especially for the inshore fishermen. We have dozens of inshore humps that produce good numbers of Cod...many of these humps are just outside the areas we fish for Striped Bass making combo trips a breeze...A morning of light tackle sportfishing for stripers and blues and then a short run to one of the nearshore shoals for some bottom fishing for a few tasty fish dinners!!! We use ultra sensitive, lightweight butterfly jigging gear on these trips...no heavy broomstick gear commonly associated with cod/bottom fish!!! Give us a call for reservations!!! 207-691-0745
A little more info from Boating Local.com NOAA has announced that a total of 6,700 metric tons (mt) of GOM cod would be available to commercial and recreational fishermen for the 2012 fishing year, down from 8,000 mt in 2011. A new stock assessment conducted late last year indicated that the cod biomass was much smaller than presumed, and that a cutback in the range of 90% would ultimately be needed. In response, however, NOAA accepted a 22% cutback for the current year, but made it clear that a much more stringent reduction would likely need to be implemented for the 2013 fishing year. The measures agreed upon included a reduction in the daily bag limit from 10 cod to 9, and a reduction in the minimum size from 24” to 19”. The new minimum size is intended to reduce the number of cod discarded by anglers attempting to reach their 9-fish limit, and thus reduce discard mortality.
To give you an idea of the style of bottom fishing we do check out this recap of a trip we did in the past...October 24th, 2010 trip report. After a long, productive and very fun season, the Striped Bass have all but left Maine waters...But hey...that doesn't have to mean that our saltwater fishing season has to end...Case in point was our groundfishing trip yesterday. Chris Oliver & John Coppola met me at the dock at 6:30 am...the air temp was chilly, in the low 30's, but we were dressed for the conditions....After going through my safety check list, We cast off our lines, left the dock and blasted down the St. George river at a brisk 30knot clip...we soon cleared the mouth of the river and left the Georges islands behind us as we headed across Muscongus Bay on flat ass calm seas, bound for some ledges ESE of Monhegan island. After a 40 minute run from the dock we arrived on the numbers and got set to drop our jigs into the depths below us...Chris was armed with a Shimano
Stella 10000, Trevala butterfly jigging combo as well as an Avet lever drag reel on a butterfly jigging rod...attached to his leaders were 10 oz. Williamson vortex jig and teaser rig...John was set up with a Shimano Stradic 8000, Trevala butterfly jigging combo...John was using the standard 8-12 oz diamond jig with teaser rig...My rig was a Daiwa Saltiga 30 conventional reel mounted to a nomad travel rod with a diamond jig teaser rig...All the tackle that we used is not the traditional broomstick gear commonly associated with bottom fishing, rather we use very sensitive & lightweight yet extremely powerful graphite rods that are a joy to use for hours on end...the ultrathin braided superlines loaded on our high speed reels allow us to feel the lightest of bites even in depths of several hundred feet!!!...Our first drop was in about 90 feet of water...As soon as our jigs hit bottom they are hammered immediately and all three of our rods are thumping with the weight of nice fat 8-10 pound keeper sized cod...This action would continue for several hours as we methodically worked the structure below...often our jigs would get nailed on the drop so it was important to keep a watchful eye on the line as the jigs rocketed toward the bottom...if the line stopped moving, it was because a cod had slammed the jig on the fall...when this happened, we quickly engage the drag and set the hook on the fish...most of our strikes came on the jig itself but many hits were on the teaser, we even had some doubles where we caught cod on both the jig and teaser. Along with the dozens of cod that we caught we also caught Pollock, Acadian Redfish and a few other rockfish species...At the end of the day everyone went home with some nice filet's and some sore arms to show for itMaine Saltwater Fishing Guide
Capt. George Harris
207-691-0745
www.superfly-charters.com
