Bunny Clark Fishing Update
Written & Edited by Tim Tower
Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 7:00 AM EST
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Note: Note: The Western Gulf of Maine proposed regulations for the 2026 appear below. This is the proposal adopted by the New England Fishery Management Council. This has been passed on to the regional office of the National Marine Fisheries Service who will review this proposal and either implement it as is or change it slightly. You can see that in this new proposal they have eliminated the cod season for September and have decreased the minimum haddock size from 18 inches to 17 inches.
Gulf of Maine cod
Gulf of Maine haddock
I left to meet Andy Armitage at Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts on the afternoon of January 16th. We flew overnight to London, England to begin a nine day spell of watching English football games until I was to fly back today, which I did. I got home at 3:00 PM. There was a couple of inches of snow at Logan when we landed. In fact, there were only two flights that left London today for arrival in the coastal U.S. north of Florida. Mine was the only flight from England to Boston. Andy's flight to Charlotte, North Carolina was canceled on the same day, due to fly out tomorrow. He stayed in London and watched football games all day and the Patriots' game at night.
I believe that this is the seventh year that I have flown to England to watch football games. I am totally enamored by it. I wouldn't have given you the powder to blow the notion of watching a soccer game out of the room before the World Cup over eight years ago, before that. I could have cared less. But then Leicester City, located in the eastern Midlands, England, won the Primier League (England's biggest league) in May of 2016. Andy Armitage is as huge Leicester fan. I had been riding road bikes with him for a few years before. He had become a good friend of mine by the time that Leicester had won the League. He was excited about the win. His excitement spilled over on to me. Slowly but surely I got interested in the game as I became less and less enchanted with the National Hockey League, a sports league I had loved, the Boston Bruins specifically, since I was a young boy. The NHL has been diluted so much in the last fifteen years, I have lost interest. I still like to watch a Bruins hockey game occasionally. But I don't follow it enough to even know the players now. When I do need to know anything, I call my brother, Courtland, to give me the details. I have become a sad Leicester City fan first (They haven't been doing well as of the last three years). All the other American sports come in second. I have always been a Patriots fan. But I have never been an American football fan in general.
So Andy drove me around England to watch Leicester City games, three of them. One in Wrexham, Wales, one in Coventry, England and a home game in Leicester. They didn't play well in any of the games we attended. It rained the whole time we were there until Saturday, yesterday. We saw every other football game we could on TV or the computer. We walked the English countryside and got soaked a couple of times. I loved it! But I'm glad to be back.
The wind blew out of the north at twenty to twenty-five knots all day. It never seemed to over-blow. But I wasn't offshore in a boat either. The sky remained overcast all day. It started to snow lightly at around 8:00 AM and continued throughout the day and into the night. Except for the occasional time when the snow fell more rapidly, the visibility ranged from good to very good over the ocean. The air temperature never got over 20°F, to my knowledge. In fact, the highest air temperature that I saw was 17°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 29°F (with a low of 14°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 19°F (with a low of 8°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 15°F (with a low of 6°F).
I got up at 3:00 AM this morning to go through my exercise routine, feed the dog and assess my snow shoveling demands for the day. I do an hour of core work every day including 180 to 230 pushups every morning, plus, before I start doing anything (except feed the dog - he gets fed at 4:00 AM). At 5:30 AM, I started an hour of shoveling. At 6:40 AM, the plow truck showed up to clear the driveway enough to get my truck out. They couldn't complete the job because we are supposed to get four inches of snow tonight, it was much slower getting everyone plowed and he needed to get everyone operational before he fine tuned all their jobs. I was happy they got me this early as I could have gotten the truck out if I had to.
I oversaw the plowing and then started some chores around the house. I settled in writing this update after 7:15 AM.
I ended up shoveling and working at the desk all day. No businesses were open. So I couldn't go that route. I went down to the Cove to shovel out the two restaurants and the storm drains surrounding them. I completed about three and a half hours of shoveling. Below is a view of the Cove from the road between the two restaurants and over the garden patio at Barnacle Billy's, Etc. I took this picture around noon.
The sky was clear for the first half of the morning. The later half, and through the afternoon and into the night, was overcast. We saw no precipitation with the cloud cover. The visibility remained excellent throughout. The wind blew out of the northwest at twenty knots or more at sunrise through an hour or two into the morning. It was evident that the wind had no teeth and was going to die. And die it did. By mid morning, we had about ten knots of west northwest wind. After noon, the wind was out of the west at ten to fifteen knots, max. This remained through the afternoon and well into the night. The highest air temperature that I saw today was 18°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 23°F (with a low of 10°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 18°F (with a low of 1°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 17°F (with a low of 1°F).
I completed and hour's worth of shoveling, trying to beat the plow truck, before I started editing this site.
The rest of the day was spent working on Barnacle Billy's items, including getting the webcam back online. Our phone system is still not hooked up at either restaurant yet. I'm hoping that will happen tomorrow?
The afternoon was spent running around getting items finished. This included getting new prescription lenses for my glasses.
I took our twelve year old border collie, Gill, out for a walk on the Marginal Way. I started on the entrance by my sister, Cathy's, house. There was a big plowed bank of snow there we had to surmount first. Gill couldn't get over it. So I had to lift him up over resulting in both of us ending up head first in the snow on the other side. It was so deep walking after that that Gill would only go fifteen or twenty feet and stop. Whereby I had to get behind him and push in order to get him to the Marginal Way proper. I thought, once there, we would have more of a path and it would be easy for him. We finally did get there and he took a dog leg (no pun intended) right towards the closest open road in the Cove. There wasn't much of a trodden path. So, again, there was a lot of stopping and prodding. We finally got to the parking lot and the plowed road. He was very happy to be there. I don't see us doing the Marginal Way again in the foreseeable future. It was really to much for him at his age.
The sky stayed sunny most of the day with some cloud cover at times. The visibility remained excellent. The wind blew out of the west northwest at twenty knots or more until noon, when I noticed that it was more like fifteen knots most of the time. The wind was right out of the west at sunset with speeds of ten knots. The highest air temperature that I saw was a balmy 22°F. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 23°F (with a low of 12°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 20°F (with a low of -10°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 22°F (with a low of -2°F).
I spent most of the day either preparing for the New England Fishery Management Coucil meeting or attending the meeting on Zoom. The topic of discussion was the recreational fishing regulations for fiscal 2026 (May 1, 2026 to April 30, 2027). The Recreational Advisory Panel had pushed forth a motion on January 20th that was then approved by the Groundfish Committee and moved to the Council. However, on the 20th, wave five data (September/October) estimates for 2025 had not been available. So wave five data for 2024 were used. Turned out that we caught much more cod, almost four times as many cod, during wave five in 2025 than 2024. Below are the regulations the RAP & the Groundfish Committee moved forward to the Council after the meeting on January 20th:
Gulf of Maine cod
Gulf of Maine haddock
Gulf of Maine cod
Gulf of Maine haddock
I had a doctor's appointment at 3:00 PM. So I was not there when the Council made their choice. I don't have a vote on the Council anyway, as I don't hold a seat. But, because I wasn't there, I couldn't speak to this either. I did confer with Council members (two) during the meeting.
This system of making regulation changes every year only works for the commercial fisherman. How can anglers expect to book trips on charter/party boats in advance without knowing the regulations they will be facing every year. Do they make reservations to catch cod in September only to cancel because they can't keep any? It's a strange unfair system.
Now the regulation proposal will go to the National Marine Fisheries Service for review and implementation. They can approve the proposed regulations as is or they can adjust it somewhat. As our NMFS Regional Administrator, Mike Pantony, said yesterday. If the private angler can't keep cod on their own boat they can always go on a party/charter boat and do so. (I'm paraphrasing here) It will be interesting to see what comes out on May 1, 2026, the beginning of next season.
By 7:00 AM, the air temperature had dropped to 8°F. It started rising after that. The highest value that I saw today wasd 22°F. It was sunny all day with few clouds. The visibility remained excellent. The wind blew out of the northwest to almost twenty knots this morning but was dying out. By noon, the wind was exactly eight knots at it's highest gust, west northwest. Then the westerly wind started to increase as sunset drew near. The wind was over fifteen knots by 6:00 PM. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 26°F (with a low of 12°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 21°F (with a low of -11°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 22°F (with a low of 0°F).
Once I got my website update out of the way and all the emails addressed, I attended a CPR course (American Heart Assoc.) with my number one, Danny DellaMonica, and the managers of Barnacle Billy's, Inc. It started at 8:00 AM. We were done by 11:00 AM. I worked until 1:00 PM on orders and checking on the status of my Merchant Mariners Credential (captain's license). I was told that the MMC was in line but that the application was in order and just waiting for a background check. They have to check to see if you have become a felon or you got a DUI since the last time you got your MMC. A DUI, becoming a felon or having a positive drug test automatically prevents you from getting your license. I already received my medical cred.
The afternoon was spent go-foring.
At 6:00 PM, I took Gill for a walk on the beach at 6:00 PM. Deb took him to the doctor's today as he has been urinating blood. He has been diagnosed with bladder infections before, showing the same signs. So back on the antibiotics with a note that he shouldn't do too much exercise. That put the Marginal Way out of reach as the snow is too deep for a casual stroll. The depth is over his head. So the beach was perfect as there are so many smells that he can't get to them all unless he goes at a snail's pace, which he did. On the way up the beach it was very slow going. But on the way back he trotted right behind me. I limited the distance to a mile. After a half a mile up the beach, he was very happy to go back to the truck. A couple nights ago we took a walk on the Marginal Way that was a bit too much for Gill. I took a picture of him in the struggle on the path leading to the walk. This digital image appears below.
The sky was sunny and clear all day. The air temperature was colder than normal. The morning saw it hovering around 10°F. I only saw a high of 16°F today. The visibility was excellent all day. The wind blew out of the northwest at twenty-five to thirty knots for the first half of the morning. But there was no teeth to the wind. By 10:00 AM it had dropped about five knots. By noon, it was less. About that time the wind backed out of the west. Wind speeds picked up again to twenty and twenty-five knots. The wind velocity stayed about like this for the rest of the day and into the night. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 17°F (with a low of 8°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 13°F (with a low of 2°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 17°F (with a low of 1°F).
It was a very busy Friday. But I managed to get all I had planned to get done, done by 5:00 PM. I needed to update this page with new pictures and set it up for this 2026 season. The time is certainly nye. I spent a lot of time on the phone early. Orders mostly. I had a tech down to complete the generator check that was started a couple of weeks ago but couldn't be finished because of a part that couldn't be found. At the same time our fuel company, Tom Gray with Estes Oil, couldn't get to the fuel fill at Barnacle Billy's, Etc. because I had neglected to shovel a path through the snow bank. It hadn't even occurred to me that we would have this problem. But all I had to do was bring a shovel; they ended up shoveling it out despite me telling them I could do it. Sometimes it pays to be the old man!
By 1:00 PM, I was free to take off to Portsmouth to pick up supplies and have a meeting at Safe Harbor, about the Bunny Clark. I got home after 5:00 PM. Just in time to take Deb out for Chinese.
The air temperature seemed to take longer to warm up but it warmed up to a higher value than yesterday. I saw 21°F as the highest value of the day. It certainly could have higher as I didn't look at the thermometer much today; way too busy for my own good. The visibility was excellent all day. The sky was clear all day with a bright sun. The wind was light out of the northwest for most of the morning with no wind at all for the rest of the day. The ocean along the shore was flat calm for the first time in a while. It looked beautiful under a bright sun. The wind struck out of the north at fifteen knots at almost exactly 8:00 PM. By 10:00 PM, the north wind had increased to twenty-five knots. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 21°F (with a low of 7°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 18°F (with a low of -10°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 20°F (with a low of -7°F).
This winter's weather is closely paralleling the winter of 1977/78, according to my records. I was tub trawling that winter in the Mary E, a 32' wooden lobster boat, which I also chartered in the summer. Tub trawling is a method of commercial fishing where you set long lines with hooks on the bottom to catch groundfish like cod and haddock. That winter we were targeting cusk to sell to Pennsylvania. They were being sold as rock eel. And we were getting close to a dollar a pound for them, which was a very high price in those days. We stocked more money in January of 1978 than any of the small coastal draggers in our area. There was a moratorium on catching cod in federal waters that winter. So we could only keep the cod we caught in state waters. That wasn't a problem in those days as there were plenty of cod inshore. The weather was so windy every day that we fished at night when there was less wind. There were times when it was so windy that it was too dangerous to try to go home. So we would lay-to with the riding sail up, lock the wheel and go below. But, because we were the only boat out, we did great. The days mirrored this winter for cold temperatures, snow/snow cover and wind. And, of course, we had the 78 blizzard on the new moon, Feburary 7th on astronomically high tides, snow over two feet, very low air temperatures and wind gusts to 100 mph. We had at least two big nor'easters that winter including the big one. I'm recalling this now as we are missing a very major storm as I write that might have mirrored the '78 storm had it not gone offshore. We are so lucky as the full moon tides are the highest tides this winter (sometimes it's the new moon, other years it's the full moon that has the most influence). And the full moon tides always strike at noon and midnight, which is a pain in the neck for someone trying to defend the restaurants by keeping the water coming across the parking lot out of them and directed down the street drains. After that winter, the groundfishing was terrible inshore. We all blamed it on the huge winter storm in February. I never fished offshore in those days and only on Jeffrey's Ledge once or twice a year. We didn't need to. How things have changed.
I felt like I was running around more than I did yesterday. It started by letting the plumber in at 7:00 AM. The rest of the morning, with Barnacle Billy's interruptions, I worked on getting ready for the new 2026 Bunny Clark fishing season. I adjusted my site, did all the background stuff, organized the online booking system and set up data bases, etc. I was by 2:00 PM, when I had lunch. The rest of the day was filled with chores around the house.
At 6:00 PM, I took the dog, Gill, for a walk. We walked down to the Cove via the Marginal Way. It was much easier this time as others had walked the Marginal Way, making a bit of a path. It was a very narrow path which made for good balance training. The path was uneven as not enough people had walked it and the snow was still deep with no melting having taken place. I wanted to check on the restaurants and then I wanted to make another attempt on taking Gill on the Marginal Way for exercise. I was delighted with Gill for half of the walk; he stayed right behind me. Right after a spot we called Pounders Canyon growing up, it started to get difficult for Gill. I was way too warm with the work it took walking for the clothes I had on. From Pounders Canyon to the lighthouse I had to coax Gill with milk bones. Even then, it wasn't easy for him (or me to get him going). There was more Marginal way to walk after the lighthouse, but I figured discretion was the better part of valor for this dog and staying dry from overheating was the better route for me. It was 16°F but there was no wind. Along the way to the Cove, Gill got stuck going off the path. When he saw me he tried to cut across the Barnacle Billy's parking lot that we do not plow. When I noticed he wasn't behind me, I looked over to see him stopped, needing help. I laughed and took a picture of him in his plight under a full moon. The digital image appears below.
The sky cleared during the early part of the morning but the wind came up out of the northeast. At one point, it was blowing about twenty knots. No stronger. Just nine miles offshore, at the closest weather buoy, was giving winds out of the north at thirty to thirty-five knots. I never saw that in Perkins Cove. By 1:00 PM, the wind was out of the north at ten to fifteen knots. The ocean wasn't particularly rough today. It certainly looked good enough to haul traps close to shore. But it certainly wasn't calm. The visibility remained excellent. The highest air temperature that I saw was 27°F at 2:45 PM. I only looked once after noon. The only reason that our air temperature was warmer than everyone else was the influence of the warmer air off the water where we are so close to the coast. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 25°F (with a low of 8°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 21°F (with a low of -10°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 24°F (with a low of 2°F).
We had a robust day of early bookings for the 2026 Bunny Clark fishing trips this morning. By 7:00 AM, the sky had cleared and there was a brilliant sun by 8:00 AM. The air temperature had risen to 11°F. By the end of the day there were still quite a few spots available on the Bunny Clark for fishing. But I was also surprised how many days were booked with charters. Deb took all the early reservations, some of the earliest ones with me typing on the computer right beside her. Jane took over after 8:00 AM.
I spent most of the day organizing my week and working with the plumber at Barnacle Billy's, Etc. He had to finish up down there so that our construction crew can start putting the kitchen back together tomorrow after they dismantled the flooring to replace the rotted wood underneath. Years of water going through the grout under the tiles had taken it's toll.
I was done by 2:00 PM, had lunch and then walked Gill down to shovel out the Bunny Clark truck. I had left it alone after the other storm with the prediction of another major one occurring on Sunday afternoon. When, two days before, I heard that the storm was going out to sea, I figured I would wait until I was sure there was going to be no snow before digging the truck out and charging the battery. Gill was with me so I did an extra walk on the Marginal Way with him to get a full mile of walking in.
The wind blew out of the north at twenty knots or so ashore but from thirty to thirty-five knots offshore and not too far offshore. There were still gusts to thirty-three knots offshore at noon. The wind had dropped to fifteen knots out of the north along the shore at sunset. It was still over twenty knots offshore. The visibility was excellent all day. The sky was clear. The air temperature warmed to a brilliant 36°F at the house here. It felt almost warm after the cold air temperatures we have been having. In Boston, Massachusetts (Logan International Airport) the high air temperature was 34°F (with a low of 17°F). The Concord, New Hampshire's high temperature was 30°F (with a low of 5°F). The high air temperature at the Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine was 34°F (with a low of 13°F).
Today was all about Barnacle Billy's, on the business side of things. We have been having growing pains with the transfer from Spectrum to Fidium. Part of this is because this is the third network switch in ten years with three company's switches, wiring, etc. Part is because Fidium is such a big company I don't think they have a handle of working with a small business. Part of it is because we have a Point of Sale, webcam and Internet running at the same time and have different needs. I had a meeting with Matt Pedersen and Micah Tower, the two most responsible for the change over. Between the three of us, we decided to keep the same path and that, eventually, all this will get sorted out before the summer. I hope so. The phone system has been down for almost two weeks, the webcam has been working sometimes and not others and glitches in the office electronics have eaten up too much time. We could not have done this in the summer. I can tell you that I am sick of answering emails about the webcam. We have an average of 700 users who keep the webcam on their computers most of the day.
Just before lunch, Deb called me to say that we have a freeze-up in the dishwasher drain. This also meant that I probably had a freeze-up in the sump pump line. Both turned out to be true. I ended up spending the whole afternoon on that project after lunch. I had to run a new line from the sump pump. I also had to take the piping apart in the basement for the sinks to drain in the laundry room. I was hoping I would have more time to work this afternoon.
Gill still has this UTI issue so Deb was a the vet today for two hours with Gill. Between all of this, I never got time to go for a walk with Gill. Now whether not having the walk or going to the doctor's was the issue, I don't know. But Gill had an accident in the bedroom that had be to attended to at night. He was ashamed and certainly looked it. How he hates to hear the words; "Bad Dog.". Probably as much as I hate to hear the words "Bad Bunny". Lots of plumbing issues today!
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