Quidi Vidi (pronounced Kiddy Viddy) was known as a little historic fishing village with a small harbour near St John's, but it's all part of the larger city now. When I first visited the area it was a collection of little homes and fishing stages, and lots of fishing boats, but now there are monster homes and affluent condos.
When by the Atlantic, I wanted to catch fish, so I booked a fishing trip with QV Charters. It was a calm sunny day, ideal conditions for a landlubber like me.
Heading out of the gut towards the open Atlantic. The captain knew exactly where the fish were so we didn't stay far from the shore.
I caught the biggest fish of the trip, a cod weighing around 15lb, but of course there are cod much larger than that in the ocean. In all I caught about 5 or 6 fairly large fish, I lost count. At one point we were above a school of cod 9 metres deep.
The rods were weighted with a large lead weight. Just drop the weight into the ocean and let the line go all the way to the sea bed, then jig up and down. The cod are easy to catch, no need for bait just three hooks. The fish were lucky.... we weren't fishing for food that day, all the fish got returned to the ocean to grow bigger. There's a limit to the amount of fish that can be caught for food.... the rules are
here.
This is a sculpin, a bottom feeding fish, also known as bullhead or sea scorpion. It's not going to win any beauty prizes, but has a certain fishy charm. It also went back in the ocean.
It's whale watching time in the North Atlantic, and these three humpbacks passed very close to the boat. They went on their way after giving us a good look and then all dived down, showing their tails off. What a sight!
A great way to spend the afternoon out on the North Atlantic.
