These homely fish look like giant green/brown tadpoles. They have an air bladder that almost always inflates itself right out of the fish’s mouth
on the way to the surface. The larger specimens put up a very good fight and take up a more tubular shape, comically referred to by my cousin as
“a baloney roll with fins.” The Massachusetts record is 34 pounds caught in 1990.
In most instances, we release these fish as many people find them bony and they have
a tendency to get wormy. There are certain areas where we fish where I think that the bottom must be covered with them. Old, old time fishing reports
mentioned using cusk for bait for halibut. Of course, since there are very few halibut left, this is a moot point.
