I love fishing for tog! They’re a blast to catch when you get into a “tautog blitz” where you get bites on every drop. Plus they’re perhaps my favorite fish to eat.
The icing on the cake is catching a few nice striped bass in addition to the tog. That’s exactly what happened during my most recent trip with captain Cullen and a terrific group of members from MFCC.
During this trip we had MFCC members Darren Jacobs, Buck Buchanan and Gordon Craig.
Captain Cullen's beautiful (and brand new) 33' Conch! This is the boat we use for the majority of our MFCC trips.
I’m a little late getting around to posting this report, because I needed to get ready for this past weekend’s Surfcasting Meetup and Long Distance Casting Competition (which I’ll make a post about soon).
Nevertheless, let’s dive into my latest toggin’ and bassin’ adventure from this past Friday May 10th.
A Breezy & Cold May Morning
Whenever the wind is blowing against the tide, sea conditions will be rougher than when the wind and tide are moving in the same direction. On the morning of May 10th a strong northeast wind was blowing directly into the incoming tide, making for choppy conditions in the area shown below.
Typically I like to get an early start, but for this trip we decided to delay our departure until 11am, because sea conditions would hopefully be calmer by then. The reason being, was that by 11am the tide would be outgoing, and moving in the same direction as the wind, which would likely make for a more enjoyable fishing experience.
To our surprise the seas were still quite choppy when we anchored up at our first tautog spot of the day. It was downright cold out, and I crossed my fingers that the fish would cooperate, or else this was going to be a very chilly experience. Catching fish, on the other hand, has a funny way of warming people up.
This Spring's Excellent Tautog Bite Continues
Captain Cullen and I were expecting to catch a lot of short tautog during this trip, so we were both pleasantly surprised when keeper-size tog quickly began coming over the rail. Everyone was hooking up using 1.5oz Togzilla jigs and green crabs.
If you need jigs for tautog, then check out our brand new Cape Cod Tautog Kit. Members of MFCC get 25% off the retail cost!
Darren Jacobs has been going on MFCC group trips since we started offering them 7 years ago!
During this trip we caught a mix of female and male tautog. Here we have a female. Females have a more rounded jaw than males.
We caught several tog that were between 19 and 20 inches, but none that were over the 21 inch "trophy tautog rule" size. For our crew from MFCC this was their first time tautog fishing and I think they were enjoying themselves. It is definitely a lot of fun when you're getting instant constant action from hard pulling keeper-size blackfish.
Buck Buchanan with one of his first-ever tautog. All three guys onboard this trip caught their first blackfish!
Sure it was cold and windy during this trip, but when you're catching fish, who really cares!
Tautog fillets are my favorite. 
For the first time this spring we also caught several large scup (also called porgy). I would expect more and more scup to move in this week. All of the scup we caught appeared to be over the minimum size with several that were the size of a dinner plate!
It only took about 75 minutes of fishing for us to catch our limit of 3 keeper tautog per person. After cleaning up the boat Captain Cullen asked if we'd like to try for striped bass, and we all happily agreed.