[B]11-26 Tog trip out of Cape May[/B]

I left my home around 4:00 am for togging on Wed and grouper fishing on Thurs. When we left Cape May Inlet, bites would be very slow as there were big waves from SW and water was pretty dirty.
When we got to Cape May Reefs, we were the only boat out there. 8*
However to my surprise, we had constant bites throughout the day once we got good bottom.  After limited out, we started to release many keepers.  I might had about 20 keepers myself. I was thinking about useing smaller jigs, but I kept using crab as it worked so good. :)
There were all mixed sizes upto 8 - 9 lbs.

Capt Mike hold double header.

Capt Mike and Willy

 

 

 

[B]11-27 Grouper fishing in NC[/B]
After fishing tog in Cape May, NJ, I continued to drive down for NC.
I arrived at the dock by 4:00 am and had a couple of hours sleep in my car until Capt woke me up around 6:30 am.
When I asked Joe hwo far we go as we left the inlet.  He said with a big smile that it is only 8 miles and we catch nice gag grouper within sight of land :) 

I decided not to use my favorite hammered diamond jigs as I wanted to experiment other jigs for grouper.
I dropped 5 oz Octopus jig from Norway. The jigs look good for halibut and grouper as halibut and grouper love octopus.
I had a nice keeper grouper on the Octopus jig on the first drop !
 I had two keeper gag grouper and two shorts within half hour.
I thought I finally found a grouper killer jig.  But grouper didn't hit the jig any more. They must smelled bait.  I had a few pictues of grouper on the Octopus jigs, but unfortunately all pictures were blur.

-my new grouper jig, Octopus jig. I replaced the treble hook and slit ling with Gamatatsu Siwash single hook and Owner split ring size 8.

 

Next, I switched to 6 oz Shimano Flat- Side jig. Flat-Side jigs work great for me for tuna and cod. It was not good test for the jig as bites were slowed donw considerabley when I used the jigs. I had a keeper gag grouepr on it.

While playing with baits for a while, I used 6 oz Solvkroken Stainless Viking jig from Norway.  A friend of mine caught three black groupers upt 55 lbs using 9 oz Solvkrokne Stainless jig on a party boat out of Panama City, Fl years ago.
While casting out and working botom as we do cod jigging, I had a nice keeper gag grouper and dropped a bigger one.  So I continued to use the jig until fishing was over. They final tally with the jig was 2 keeper gag grouper and one short.

a gag caught on 6 oz Solvkroken Viking jig.

 

Some say it is not difficult to catch groupers on jigs, but I alwayas have to  work hard to catch them on jigs though they really respond to jigs in some areas. 5 keeper out of 8 caught on jgis are not bad, but you know it was not great catch either when you see our (three) catches yesterday. :)

 

 

I am going to experiment with bucktails  for grouper on next trip.

 

 

 

 

 

We jigged cod among a hundred giant tuna boats near Regal Sword.
Cod jigging was stupid. It remined me of cod jigging in Kodiak Island, Alaska in July when cod waited my jigs with mouth wide open. I just caught close to 100 cod on jigs, but the keeper ratio is about 50:50 and the biggest one is about 12 - 15 lbs.
I started with 8' Cosmotech rod, but I switched to 400g Jigging Master Terminator rod which arrived last week. It was a blast to use short and light rod for cod jigging.

I found new cod killer jig.
I started with 12 oz Slovkroken 99 and it worked great.
However, I switched to Shimno's 8 oz Flat-sided jig with 5/0 Owner's ST treble hooks and John Baker 12 reel as a few boats hooked up a giant just in case any giant show interest in my jig not knowing cod has special love for the jig.
While jigging for tuna in mid depth, I sometimes dropped the jig the the bottom to keep in pace with other fishermen.
Other fishermen used Viking jigs, Crippled herring and Diamond jigs. They also worked, but cod clearly favored my Flat Sided jig even it has only bare treble hook.
It was close to full moon, but strangely we didn't have much current all day and I could use 8 oz Flat-Side jig all day even we fished in 250 - 270 ft. It was great fishing with great company in fine weather. We fished until dark and cod still hit my jig.

 

We left Green Harber, MA at 5:00 AM and encountered nasty weather.
When we arrived at SWC of Stellwagen Bank, we saw a dozen of whole and bird were working.  It didn't take long to hook up a nice bft which turned out to be 61 incher ( about 140 lbs).
Lots of birds were working for a while and some tuna were within 10 ft from the boat. 8* After catching/releasing another similar size, we left to Green Harbor by 11:00 am.
When we got SWC, the water temp was 51.5 degree.  Most bunkers left from the harbors and I don't know how long bft will stay there.

 

 

Bret, Choi and myself went up to Cape Cod yesterday (10-10) and we enjoyed fine bluefin fishing with 100 plus lbs.
I dropped two nice bluefin while fighing. I used the same 350g Jigging Master Power Spell rod just after Bret caught 120 lbs bft and I dind't check lines. The main line just above the leader line got frayed. The fish should be over 150 lbs judging by the way it fought.
Soon after I dropped another nice one on a jig. This time Gamatatsu 7/0 Siwashi hook got opened. :? I haven't had any problem with 8/0 size hooks, but I had a few problem with 7/0 size hooks in the past.