Cod comprise 85 percent of all the fish caught on the Helen H. The rest of the 15 percent is spread out among assorted species like haddock, pollock and wolf fish. With cod, the pattern usually follows suit that the steakers, those fish in the 40- to 60- pound class, are caught mostly in the dead of winter.

From December through February, these fish tend to stay in closer in 30 to 120 feet, where the big cod will be caught. February through April, the fishery moves into the 120-foot range, and the larger cod are taken over by an influx of medium-sized cod, the 12- to 25-pounders, moving in large numbers. May through July, the cod schools shift outward into the 180- to 200-foot depths and drop in general size, with a mix of small cod of 5 pounds and mediums, but there are plenty of them around to keep the rod hot all day. Other fish such as haddock run anywhere in the 5- to 10-pound range, and pollock usually fall anywhere between 3 and 25 pounds.

JERSEY STYLE
Jersey captains never really had to deal with tons of monster cod, except in the “good old days,” back before most of you reading this were born. Now, Garden State bottom bouncers are seeing more cod numbers than in recent memory. From 2003 through 2006, cod began to show up in some impressive fashion on the 20- to 50-mile wrecks.

Captain Joe Bogan of the Jamaica II out of Brielle said, “New Jersey used to have a great cod fishery in the early 1980s; we had numbers where you could see a few hundred fish on deck on a trip. Then it all went downhill, as the 1990s saw them pretty much gone from the overfishing off Georges Bank. There simply weren’t enough fish to come trickling down our way any more.”

After the closures were put into place at Georges Bank, there seemed to be somewhat of a resurgence of fish from 2003 to 2006. That’s when Bogan ran special cod trips out to some secret and not-so-secret 25- to 45-mile wrecks. Reported catches of 100 cod or more were coming up onto deck, and they weren’t any sissy size cod either -- many went in the 30- and 40-pound class, and even a few 50-pounders were hauled in. Most of the cod ranged from 5 to 12 pounds, and it was good to see.

“It wasn’t like we’d go out everyday and clean up. I’d run one 12-hour trip. We’d pick away at the wrecks. Once you caught them on the wreck, they wouldn’t be replaced by any more fish until a new stock moved in.”

The Jersey cod line used to be down into Cape May, but now the line seems to be off Manasquan Inlet for the farthest south the cod are willing to travel.

“I think the reason we were able to catch them in recent years is that no one else is going out for them; we’re basically the only ones who run special cod trips. I don’t think there’s enough around for everybody to target them. There’s just aren’t many swimming our way yet, but the fishing we’ve experienced definitely shows some kind of rebuilding going on. We head out and test the waters, and if they’re there, we’ll run trips,” Bogan noted. The shift of stocks down into the Garden State also seems to have been triggered by colder winter periods, where cod would follow the cooler waters down the Eastern Seaboard.