Cullen Lundholm

April 15th was the opening day of Haddock season and the forecast was absolutely beautiful, calling for land temperatures in the mid 60’s and an offshore wind forecast of five knots or less.

After the long winter and very cold spring, I have been anxious to get this season started, so I was excited to be heading back out on the water.

A group of close friends and I decided to depart from Green Harbor at a relaxed 7:00 am, and as predicted we had a very flat ride out, and the weather proved to be beautiful for our entire trip.

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Haddock Fishing During The Early Spring

Right now is a really great time of year to get back out on the water after the long winter, but it is as important as ever to be sure to watch the forecast closely, and only go out when the weather looks absolutely perfect.

With good weather and the amount of life around early in the season off Cape Cod, you should always end up having a successful day on the water. However, if you’re not careful, you could get beat up by rough seas, and regretting your choice to head out.

We arrived on the Southern edge of the Bank where the Haddock last year were "piled up." The conditions looked exceptional and we saw a ton of life upon arriving at the bank. Black Back Gulls were picking at the surface and Gannets were dive-bombing as far as the eye could see. The whale show was also tremendous, as there were plenty of very large sand eels on the screen.

We saw Humpbacks, Minkes, and Common Dolphin all spread out as far as you could see. Our first several drops produced nothing, based off of last year’s numbers. The water temperature was hovering just over 40 degrees so we decided to push off the area and go looking elsewhere.

Locating Keeper Haddock

We really had to search for these fish and made many drops on great piles of life with exceptional bait balls underneath the boat with no luck. We eventually moved into a slightly deeper water and finally started to pick at some smaller Haddock.

Another quick move and with the Haddock piled up on the sounder we narrowed in on a short drift that had Haddock on our jigs with every drop, oftentimes producing fish before the jigs could even get to the bottom. After a few very productive drifts we all had our limit of good-sized Haddock, as well as many released Cod and smaller Haddock.

With the water temperature being a lot colder than normal for this time of year, the Haddock filets remained very firm for cutting. In my opinion, a well cared for, fresh fillet of Haddock, will always be more appealing for the dinner plate than Cod.

Once the work of fileting was over we arrived back on the dock in the early afternoon with the sun shining and our bags full of filets. It was a great day to be out on the water and I look forward to getting back out there during the next weather window.

I have been chatting with Ryan of MFCC and we have decided to offer a couple group haddock fishing trips for people who are interested. These trips will take place on May 6th and/or May 7th, weather depending of course. 

If you are interested in fishing for haddock with us, then please click here and enter your email address. Ryan will be sending out an email about these new group fishing trips very soon.