Any of y’all who spend any regular time aboard know that the Helen H crew-including, of course, every captain of every one of the five boats in the growing fleet, the mates, the office, the galley folks-know that these folks stay in perpetual motion. Like any family-run and operated party and charter operation, the Helen H Fleet does 90-percent of its business in the late spring, summer and early fall. They make hay while the sun shines.
A side-effect of that is that no human being can attend to the daily grind of fishing, boat maintenance, answering phones, booking and scheduling, plus keeping at least one hand in the regulatory nightmare that fisheries have become plus marketing plus staying on top of a website plus sleeping at least a few hours a week. [...] Read the rest of this post »

Pro Tactics: Bigger Scup and Sea Bass
By Zach Harvey

No one reading this is apt to need a big sales pitch on why porgy fishing is such fun. Let’s face it: scup provide near-constant action, they pull-pound-for-pound-harder than almost anything else swimming in New England waters, and they’re delicious. And for whatever hard-wired biological reason, massive bodies of these little scrappers storm the shoal waters outside Hyannis each spring, to sow the next crop and then binge-feed. Interestingly, the Nantucket Sound spring run of porgies is unique in that the scup elsewhere-especially west of Buzzard’s Bay-are piled up thick along the beaches but just won’t chew. While draggers and fish trappers in Rhode Island have massive May and June landings, rod-and-reelers can’t usually buy a bite. Off Hyannis, porgies-the biggest kind of porgies, two- to four-pounders-chew like crazy. There are also sea bass in the mix, including some absolute monsters in excess of six pounds. [...] Read the rest of this post »