"Thanks to a little good weather and great company this past week the fishing has been as much fun as it could possibly be. It is clear that the fish are not in all the same places that they usually are at this time of year but with a little looking around we have managed to find them, and hook them, and hold them up for a picture or two. Bass are feeding heavily on squid in the rips and along the shoreline they can be found behind just about every rock. The number of large bass willing to take the fly and light tackle this past week was enough to make any angler happy. We even managed a couple dozen over 20 lbs. one day this week !!!

"I hope everyone is enjoying the spring as much as they can between the cold and wet weather that mother nature has dealt us. This is the time to try for big bass on the fly, so if you have not done it yet get out and give it a try."

"Fishing throughout Buzzards Bay remains outstanding despite the continuing lousy weather. Loads of stripers of all sizes have been feeding heavily during both the day and night. This is a bit unusual because normally at this time of the season (1st week in June), the fish become less active during the hours between mid-morning and late afternoon. Maybe it’s the cooler air and water temperatures or perhaps it’s the sustained overcast days that we’ve been experiencing.

"Surprisingly, many larger stripers are being caught this year as compared to recent years. I’m not talking just about more "keeper-sized" fish; you know fish over that magic 28" mark, but real trophy bass. Thirty and forty pound linesiders are being caught on a fairly regular basis and on all types of gear.

"We’ve seen a number of schools of some very large stripers corralling pods of herring into the shallows along the edges of the canal. We’ve watched with awe as these large marauding stripers tightened the circle around terrified baitfish until the herring pod finally explodes airborne only to fall victim as they hit the water again. It seems that these stripers have taken a page or two from their rivals, the bluefish, who frequently use this same group-hunting scheme.

:Speaking of bluefish, you should be sure to bring along plenty of extra flies, some heavy bite-tip fluorocarbon and maybe a few wire tippets as bluefish have moved into our waters in good numbers. Even though it’s relatively early in the season, we are seeing more very large bluefish than we’ve seen in past years. I’m always dumbfounded when I hear of some anglers, especially fly fishermen, complaining about being harassed by bluefish. Pound for pound, bluefish are the meanest, head-shaking, hard fighting, knuckle-busting gamesters that will test your angling skills and equipment. So if you are looking for some heart-thumping excitement, try tying on a fairly large popper, slider or gurgler and cast it to the side of some surface feeding bluefish. These fish often smash a surface fly so hard that they explode two or three feet out of the water in a spectacular aerial display. If that doesn’t get your adrenalin flowing, you had better call your local EMT service. 

"With all of the wonderful fishing available to us right now it is very tempting in all the excitement to take a few chances. Going out when that weather conditions are dangerous, not wearing a floatation device at all times, not leaving a float plan, not having your VHF radio on, wading alone or wading too deep, etc, etc, etc. All I can say is DON’T. If those of us who are trained licensed charterboat captains and who are on the water all of the time won’t take chances, than why would you? This has been a particularly difficult spring because of miserable weather. Many charters have had to be cancelled or shortened because of the dangerous conditions. Don’t take chances. If not for your sake than for your families sake."

"Had the yearly charter on Friday, great weather , plus the SW, W wind made for a terrific day! Lot's of big fish to 30lbs, all healthy specimens. Fish were all caught on jigs. Final tally 30 fish, 6 over 20lbs made for an awsome days. The jigging made the coldies taste all that much better. Nothing better than fresh steamers, fresh bass on the grill and washed down w/a few"

"I was out there this morning and there must have been 2,000 birds off of Chappaquoit in West Falmouth. Blues and bass everywhere!

"Middle Ground is cooking for fast sinking lines and squid patterns.

"Inside of Waquoit Bay on the ass-end of the incoming and an hour after the flood means BIG fish. The Trout Unlimited guys were in the shop crowing about the action and I hear Wasque is coming alive."

"As good as Monday's action was, today's was even better. Once again fished the west tide in the wee hours down to nearly slack. Very few fish showing, but they were there, down deep. Most were between 30 and 34 inches, but also managed a 38 and a chubby 41 or 42 which may have nudged 30 lbs. Big rubber did best on the bigger fish with bucktails taking innumerable smaller keepers.

"At first light, the jigs stopped working and the birds starting working furiously over bait. It looked more like Oct out there than June. Topwater stuff was working well and there were some nice fish in the mix, including a 36 inch and a much bigger one that exploded on my yellow Gibbs Polaris, went airborne, and threw the hooks.

"I'm still trying to figure out the bait. A couple of them beached themselves nearby so I checked them out. No idea what it is. Not mackerel, pogy, herring, pollock, or whiting as far as I could tell. 5-6 inches, silver sides, blue-purplish back, oversized eyes "

"Took my first trip to the Canal. Caught three schoolies on a white bucktail jig. Tried a silver Creek Chub Popper at daybreak and hooked/landed a nice Striper in the high 30" range, which I released. I probably should've taken a pic with the digital camera. Oh well.
Nice way to start out the year!"

"The fantastic action continues. Fished the top of the tide from 4:20-6:00pm and there were fish everywhere. The very first cast was inhaled 6 feet from my legs. Bare;y had out 30 feet of line. After measuring, released a bulky 31" bass. Landed over a dozen fish, three legals and the rest were chunky mid 20"er's. One bite off from a blue, the only downer of the evening. A 7" herring fly (a lil' grizzly hackle a must) as usual. As the tide turned to the outgoing, dropback herring were flickering around but not getting attacked. Light rain and light wind provided perfect conditions"

I fished Succonnesset Shoal, dead drifting with a 350 grain sinking line and a urine-soaked (see the introduction for an explanation) Popovic's Shady Lady Squid and took a 25" to 36" fish on every other drift. I fished the beginning of the ebb tide when the rip was just forming up.

Bluefish on top, finning, in front of the New Seabury Golf Course. They love the poppers, and if they seem picky, put on a sacrificial fly and fish it about two to four feet deep. Cotuit is too good to be true. Inside, worm hatches happening sporadically. A good one turned on in Dam Pond off of North Bay, and I stumbled into another inside of Dead Neck.

"Fished West Dennis area Sat/Sun. caught quite a few blues on poppers in the 4 to 6 lb range. Not too big, but they were cooperative for most of the day. I did not see any stripers caught. All the the blues that were landed, puked up a ton of small squid. hmmm.

"I started just above the mouth of Bass River and worked the whole West Dennis Beach. The weeds
are really tough if you don't wear waders."

"I went back to Cotuit with the kayak last night. None stop action on surface plugs and popper flies. The conditions allowed me to see acres of blues finning on the surface. After a few on the spinning rod I switched to the fly rod. To my surprise the first fish to take the popper was a nice fat striper. After that I alternated between the two rigs and had fish until 8:30. 4 hours of bent rods!!!!! No blood this time either. Blues and Stripers with in the 26 - 30+ inch class."

"It seems like this past week has been good for everyone.  The weather finally seems to cooperating a bit more than in the past and fishing, while not spectacular, has been very, very good all around the Island.

"Bluefish seem to be almost everywhere, and on the slick, calm days of this past week, have been doing their small shark imitations, finning on the surface, lazing in the sun.  Poppers and small metals have been the ticket for these fish, though they can be deceptively finnicky and less aggressive than one might expect of bluefish.  East Beach on up to Wasque has had bluefish blitzes all week for the shorebound.

"Striper fishing continues to be excellent, just in time for the M.V. Rod and Gun's Striper Release Tournament this weekend.  Another tournament being held on Saturday is the Pink Squid Yacht Club's 7th Annual Fishing Tournament.  Originally started as an ad hoc group of boaters, this diverse group of over 200 islanders now can be credited with donating over $8000 annually to high school scholarships and monies to other worthy island charities.  The Osterville Anglers Club will be looking to regain their burgee that they lost last year to the Vineyarders.

"As for shore fishing, I don't think there's a beach on the island that you couldn't catch a  bass from right now.  The ponds are holding smaller fish, and some larger ones as well.  Middle Ground has been the hot ticket for top water action, but don't expect to be all alone.  Last Saturday there were upwards of fifty boats working it.  Wasque  Rips still haven't turned on as of  this writing, but that could change any day now."

"Madaket Harbor is hot right now and so are the flats. Jeff was out with some gentlemen the other days and they were into lots of 30-inch fish that weighed 15 pounds. A lady at Pebble Beach took a huge fish on a plug.

"The Jetties are hot. Great Point ... not a lot of noise but they are into blues and bass up there.

"The hotspot is truly Madaket Harbor by boat."

"What an awesome morning in Cape Cod Bay! Capt.Joe and I put in at Barnstable Harbor and headed out looking for some action. We had no idea we what we were in for. We decided to look around for the schools of macks that had been in the area to see if any big fish had located them. During our search we ran into a huge flock of gulls hammering the water. Capt. Joe always said, big birds + big bait = BIG FISH! We struck gold.

"Right off the bat Capt. Joe is doubled over with a solid 36" fish that weighed mid to upper teens. I start throwing the big herring pattern that has been so productive with no luck. After four fish Capt. Joe tells me that his rubber shad is blue and pearl. I switch to the blue version of my herring fly (I’d been using olive) and immediately hit pay dirt. We go on doubled up with fish between 30" and 38" for over an hour. My biggest fish on the fly was a 38" that was in the low 20-pound range. I figured it was as good as I would get and decided to give my casting arm a break and throw the spinning rod for a while. It turned out to be the best decision I made this season. I fire the 4" blue/pearl shad into the melee and set the hook on something solid. The 6’6" Loomis is bent over and the 10# Trilene is sloooowly easing off the spool. This fish doesn’t know he’s hooked. After 4 or 5 minutes of this slow steady loss of line I decide I better put in the electric and start chasing this fish. I gain ground and after about 8 or 9 minutes I see a ton of color deep. I get the beast to within 10’ of the boat and it decided it doesn’t like the boat. Off with 60 yards of line without any effort. I tell Capt. Joe this looks like a hell of a fish. He grabs the hand gaff and stands bye. Another 10 minutes of dogging this fish on the bottom with a rod that just can’t lift it. Finally after nearly 20 minutes we get the beast to the surface and Capt. Joe doesn’t miss. The beast is 42 ½" and we estimate the weight at better than 30 pounds. Best of all it’s only around 8:30 AM!

"We put the boat in gear and drag the fish for several minutes with the lip gaff the fish would breath but it didn’t have the strength to swim. Finally we decided that the fish would be coming home. It was bitter sweet to put that nice fish in the fish box. On one hand it’s the best fish I’ve got so far this year. On the other, it’s a shame to kill such a great fish.

"We continued to hit them for another hour or so before the birds and fish broke up. We went over towards Wellfleet and Sesuit but only found some macks. We ended in Barnstable Harbor on the flats chasing some mid 20" fish that were skittish as hell. Around noon we decided we’d had a great day and it was time to call it quits. The water was 55 to 56 degrees. The depth ranged from 17 to 26’ and the wind was moderate. Blue was the color of choice. Blue herring flies and blue 4" shad on ½ Kalin’s heads produced nearly all of the fish. Capt. Joe did get a few on topwater as well. A few bluefish we caught in the mix including one around 12#. Back on land around 1330, Nelson at Red Top confirmed the fish at 42 1/2" and 29 ¾ pounds. He figured that the live weight would have been in the low 30’s. Overall a great day OTW with my Dad, you live for days like this and when you can share them with your father it’s just that much better."

"Someone please tell me you've been taking lots of fish out of Scorton Creek this spring. Because I haven't, and I'm beginning to wonder about the brown-orange hue that's been in the water all spring. I know there are fish around on the north side of the Cape now, because I've caught fish off the beach in Sandwich. Also, I'm finally seeing baitfish and terns taking bait out of the creek. But I can't put my fly on a fish in the creek to save my life.

"My notes from last year show that the first week of June the fish were storming around the inside of Scorton Creek in both numbers and size.

"Tell me it's just me. It may well be. It's not that I've put in all that much time on the water yet. But I have been out there a half-dozen mornings at 600am during the past week when the outgoing tide should have been perfect for some spring fun.

"No fishermen either, to speak of. Any thoughts? Is the brown-orange color in the water normal, do you think? Despite the moniker, I've only been fishing Scorton for a couple years, so I don't have much longer-term perspective."

"Best I can tell is that we're about 2-3 weeks behind schedule, big schools of mackeral are just offshore, and I've read here that some fish are starting to move through the east end of the canal for the dawn bite. This is generally a mid-may thing. Perhaps there is just not enough bait in the creek yet, I haven't seen much except for a few mummichogs....no massive schools of sandeels or silversides that you normally see in June."

"Nothing very big (most were 18 inches or under, one 25), but nearly a fish on every cast on the outgoing early this AM. It pretty much switched off on the incoming except for the occasional schoolie. Best offerings were just about any sandeel fly imitation or a seafoam (light blue) netter's lance (basically a sluggo).

"Hoping that some of Riptide's horse macks would make their way over to my area I switched to a bigger mack swimmer, but nada. Loads of sandeels though. Now if those macks would only invade the Canal!"