Tomcod Fishing in Connecticut

• Bulletin reader Richard Lester e-mailed a very valid question that has been asked of me many times in the past few years: "Where have the tomcod gone?"
• Lester talked of fishing for tomcod as a young boy and how good they were to eat. There hasn't been much written or spoken about them in recent years and he was wondering what has happened to the tomcod.
• Also called frost fish, because they generally show up when the first frosts occur during the fall and stay till shortly after ice-out in the spring, tomcod are one of the few species whose demise, in my opinion, can not be blamed on mismanagement and overexploitation.
• Tomcod are not simply a baby cod, in the way that a snapper bluefish is a juvenile bluefish, even though they look similar. Tomcod are a different species -- Microgadus tomcod in the books.
• Young Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and tomcod look generally alike in that both have similar coloration, three dorsal fins and small barbells. The Atlantic cod has a bigger mouth and a more robust body. The simplest way to differentiate the two species is a subtle difference in the caudal (tail) fin. Atlantic cod have a squared-off or slightly concave tail, where a tomcod's tail is slightly rounded or convex.
• Lester didn't mention when he was a young kid, but my guess is his memories of good tomcod fishing, like mine, are during or prior to the late 1970s. The 1980s was a decade of heat and drought. It was during that warm time that many of our local cold-loving species -- tomcod, mackerel and winter flounder -- mostly disappeared from local waters.
• Tomcod are a short-lived, coldwater species that seldom grows to much more than a foot in length or a pound in weight. The warm spell of the '80s affected spawning success of winter flounder, drove mackerel out of the warming waters of Long Island Sound for the most part and decimated our local tomcod population. (Bob Sampson, Norwich Bulletin)