FoodFishery2020

Summer 2020 Recreational Food Fishery

This year's Summer Recreational Groundfish Fishery will follow a schedule similar to what DFO announced for the last couple of years. This year the fishery will be open Saturday, Sunday & Monday each week beginning July 4th and ending September 7th (Canada Day long weekend to Labor Day long weekend.) There will be another week of fishing near the end of September for the Fall Fishery.

This year I completed a pile of work on Dad's new (to him) boat which he purchased in the Spring of 2019. I completely renovated the interior including a new dash, seats, electrical system and a bunch of new accessories. If you haven't already, check out the build story on Dad's Boat Build page.

Our first run in the newly renovated boat was on Friday of the 2nd food fishery weekend in July. I delivered the completed boat to Dad in Bay Roberts so we immediately hit the water for a test ride. Everything went well and worked as it should. It was an amazing afternoon on the water as a large pod of a dozen or more whales were in the bay just of Port De Grave. It was a spectacular sight watching 8-10 whale breach at the same time!

Our first actual fishing adventure together took place the following weekend on Sunday afternoon as I've been working Saturdays recently. It was worth the wait as the weather worked out perfect for our adventure.

Dad has a seasonal launch pass at the Legion in Bay Roberts which provides a great facility for launching recreational watercraft.

Our first destination was the fishing grounds off the lighthouse just outside Bay Roberts but we didn't have much luck there today.

My Penn Fathom 60LW salt water reel and matching rod is still working flawlessly, I'm beyond happy with its performance and reliability.

We moved on checking grounds all along the shore headed towards Port De Grave finally running into a nice bit of fish off Burnt Head.

The fish were tightly knit in about 75' of water. We would drift across the hot spot turn around, reposition, and let the swell take us back over the grounds over and over catching our quota of five fish each in no time.

It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon on the water. Temps were right around 20ºC with very little wind.

With our quota caught we made our way back to the boat ramp to load up and head back to Dad & Iris's for supper.

Iris had the pot on boil all afternoon so we were treated to an amazing traditional Jigs Dinner with all the fixings. A perfect way to end an awesome day on the water!

On July 27th Bassan and I were working when we got a call from Pete Tucker asking if we wanted to go out cod fishing. We quickly reassessed our priorities, closed up the work site and headed to the marina in St. Phillip's to meet Peter & Johnny.

We had a very short ride to a fishing ground right off St. Phillip's and got into an excellent run of fish right away. We had our quota filled in no time, in just 30 minutes we were already headed back in to clean up our catch.

We made quick work of cleaning up our catch on the dandy cutting tables provided by the PCSP Harbour Authority.

I even managed to catch my last three fish with a 2-prong hook as one of my prongs went missing!

On August 7th Sandra and I loaded up the new rig and headed out over the highway to Dad's place in Bay Roberts for the weekend.

His salt box style home located in French's Cove has been extensively renovated by Dad over the last decade. It still has the essence of a traditional home but now has the advantages of modern amenities such as PEX water piping, new electrical, modern windows, doors and insulation.

The surrounding property itself is beautiful and quite unique!

That evening we enjoyed a fire up at Dad & Iris's place uptown before retiring for the evening back in French's Cove.

The following day Dad and I loaded up the boat mid-morning and headed out on the bay in search of cod once again.

The weather was near perfect with gorgeous warm temperatures and absolutely no wind.

Today we headed directly to burnt head near Port de Grave as there were promising reports of good fishing.

It was slower going compared to last time but we managed to catch our quota in a little over 90 minutes, the last fish alone taking about a 1/3 of that time. Lol.

The run back to the legion in Bay Roberts was excellent as the weather stayed true and beautiful.

While dad set up his fish cleaning station behind the garage I got the boat washed and scrubbed down with freshwater and Spray 9.

This ended up being my last fishing trip of 2020 and it was a great way to end one of my most successful food fisheries recent years. Great weather, making memories with family in a boat Dad and I put a lot of time, work and pride into. A few weeks later I took about 25lbs of my catch and had beautiful fresh fish white puddings made at Porters Meats in CBS. If you've never had them I highly recommend giving them a try, they make an excellent breakfast food and are dandy for a boil-up in the woods.

Cheers, MIKE