We’ve had a great month aboard Grey Viking II with January seeing some excellent catches of Cod and plenty of fair weather enabling us to get out to sea quite often. In fact, the fishing has been superb since December, making up for the time we lost due to bad weather last November!
Looking back through my log we managed an average of 8 decent Cod per trip in January with plenty of double figure fish and the remainder in the 6lb to 8lb class. Our best Cod went 18.5lb caught by yours truly!
It seems the commercial quota reductions for 2009 and preceding years have paid dividends and as a consequence the winter Cod fishing has been as good as anyone can remember. Commercial quotas have been reduced further still for 2010 and that means a very good future is on the cards with 20lb+ Cod likely to become more commonplace this year and overall numbers of fish continuing to increase.
There have also been plenty of Whiting about to around 2lb in weight and luckily we’ve not been plagued by too many Dogfish. Once again the top bait has been big Cuttle on 8/0 pennel rigs fished downtide. Uptiding has also produced the goods with most anglers opting for black lug and squid cocktail baits when uptide fishing. We also went on a spur of the moment Conger hunt which was very productive and made a nice change!
If you’re thinking about a trip next winter I’d suggest you consider late October through until early January for the best of the winter fishing after a lunker Cod!
Looking ahead to February
We’ve a few more trips booked before our annual refit and maintenance which is from the 8th to 18th February this year. Whilst the boat is out of the water we’re also taking the opportunity to upgrade some of the boats electronics. I’m very excited about this investment and I’ll tell you more about the new equipment and how it will help with our fishing in a future post.
When we go back into the water it’ll be time to start targeting Pollack on the offshore wrecks – some of the most exciting fishing in our part of the world. Our diary is filling up quickly so if you fancy a trip for some Pollack please do get in touch!
Great report and you have certainly been doing well. I for one really enjoyed my day out with you and I have to stay it was the best days fishing I have had in a long while. Good Fishing, Great Skip and Crew and lots of tea. 😮
Thanks and good luck with the pollack.
Dave
Hiya Dave,
Thanks for the kind words mate. Hope to see you soon for a bash at the Pollack! 🙂
I will be there for sure Ray looking forward to seeing you all again in March!