Most of Cape Ann’s inshore gillnet and dragger groundfishermen have been enjoying old-time bankers’ hours and excellent catches this summer while targeting cod on Middlebank off Gloucester.
Although the hours are most unusual for these fishermen — often under six hours per daily trip — zeroing in on and catching cod inshore this season off Cape Ann is just as strange. But, with new sector and common pool management protocols in place next summer, many of these harvesters could lose the opportunity to fish these very cod again.
Plentiful feed, stock rebuilding, and "the fish following the feed" take much of the credit for the fishermen’s short and repeated 800-pound cod trips.