I hate levelwind for bottom fishing, specially deep dropping. The worm gear slows your free spool substantially. Way easier to get to the bottom w a normal conventional reel. IMO, 80# braid is also way overkill and is making it harder for you to hold bottom vertically. 50# braid is plenty and try 8 carrier line its thinner and more hydrodynamic.
I agree with you. This was my first time doing a trip like this so I was unprepared. Next time I would definitely go with a high gear ratio conventional and a little lighter braid. The reel I used on this trip I tossed in the trash when I got home, it was destroyed.
@@MudSharkZ shit man that sucks. Hope it wasnt expensive. Tbh i go super light, i use a torium 14 w/30# braid. Not everyones cup of tea but it does the job. Good luck bro
@@nathanedmunds9802 and you guys probably filled burlap sacks and poly barrels fucking full of fish 100's of pounds per person because "you didnt know better" and " that was the regs then" fucking horseshit im struggling to catch a few decent cod a yr
For the price and what your aloud to keep for fish it just it not worth it any more to go on big party boats. Smaller operations that will only take 6 guys is the way to go for new England ground fishing these days. And polleck kind of sucks but seems to be the target fish.
@@alleykat6171 It obviously gets much better than the day we were out there even now, it was a tough day. I think the week before they caught some nice Cod. But it definitely isn't what it used to be. Hopefully we will have better days to come.
@@alleykat6171 Awesome, that was my first trip on it, but I'm an old head boat rat. I've been fishing on them all my life. It's always a little crowded chaos, but I still love it.
You dont really want a level wind on your reel for this kind of fishing. Reels designed for saltwater jigging with high gear ratios 6:1 or so is what you want.
They are still out there ! Just not in the numbers we old farts were use to years ago ! About 10 years ago we fished a spot about 12 miles off the NH coast . It's shut off to all fishing now ! We caught the biggest cod I have ever seen ! Let's put it this way . I caught one 59 lbs and it wasn't a contender for the pool ! One over 70 lbs took it ! Yah those were cod mister ! The sad part is that all those big fish were females ! And there to spawn !
I used to fish out of Chatham MA with a charter and with 5 guys fishing we would catch hundreds of pounds of cod. Not anymore. This is why the US should increase our boundary out to more than the current 200 miles. Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, factory ships sit off our shore vacuuming the bottom of the ocean taking everything that swims but I can’t catch a cod to feed my family.
You have no idea what you are talking about, look at a map, all the cod grounds are within 200 miles of the us coast, anything past the us eez of 200 miles is over 2 miles deep, nobody is catching cod there. We kicked out the foreign fleets in 1976 then funded the expansion of our own fishing fleets and that along with improved technology meant that cod were severely overfished and the collapse started in the 1980's. We have only our own ridiculous fisheries policies to blame for this debacle. Oh and buy the way even after all that it's not that hard to catch a recreational limit of cod off chatham still.
@@staytight6340 My comment was directed towards the argument that somehow we still have foreign draggers to blame for our present situation which is not true, we allowed our own fleets to decimate the cod population and that is the reason we are where were are now. Draggers are allowed a 400 pound limit of cod per day while they mainly are targeting haddock, soon there will be no haddock either. There should be no commercial nets allowed in the water that is why we are in the situation we are now.
Of course not Cpt. Mike. That Bluefin trip was one of my most memorable for sure. We haven't been doing any offshore trips lately, but I've referred alot of people to you. I heard you guys had good fishing again this Fall, those big Bluefin are amazing fish.
Cast out. Hit the bottom. Reel up at an even pace 10-15 cranks. Drop down repeat cranks and repeat up and down until you are vertical. Then cast out and start over. I used to work on cod boats HH one of them. It’s the most effective method for the cod.
