"There has been some great inshore action for Stripers and Blues this past week. Unfortunately it has slowed down in the last couple days. I expect that it will heat right back up again before the weekend however. The cloudy overcast days with a light north wind has produced some excellent days to track large fish on light tackle and flies. We managed to land a half dozen bass between 38-40 inches and another half dozen between 40-44 inches with the largest bass coming on spinning tackle at 32 lbs. The fly rod was not
far behind at 29 lbs. and some anglers even had to say uncle after landing 12-15 fish on the fly rod over 20 lbs. It sure is great to have fishing like this, I wish it was this good all summer long. It is weeks like this that have me convinced that the spring fishing in the waters along the cape and islands is much more consistent and predictable now than in the fall. I will still be able to catch most of the largest bass of the whole season in the fall, and sometimes have the greatest action of the whole year, but once
again June is "consistently" the best action we see all year. If the weather continues to warm these fish will move inshore in greater numbers and the topwater action should be fantastic this next week."

"I had to shoehorn in at least one Canal session before the midnight bell tolled on Friday the 13th . Fished the first half of the west tide and it was as slow as others have reported. A catch rate of 1-2 fish per hour, definitely not fishing for the impatient. And it would have rated a thumbs down, had I not caught a decent 43 incher on a big plastic that wasn't even hitting bottom but running shallow over a ledge. In fact I was having trouble holding bottom at mid-tide, which may have something to do with the upcoming full moon tide. The rest were 24-27 inch clones. At least there were no pesky blues. 

"Not a breath of wind, spitting light rain, and mosquitoes out in force. Bathe yourself in DEET when that wind drops and bring a fly swatter."

"Had a similar experience myself at the same time and tide last night minus the catching. Current was steaming. I lost my only 5oz jig on the first cast hooked up something on the bottom and had to break it off  I was on the mainland side on the western half of the east end if that makes any sense."

"It seems like we get one excellent day, weather wise, with three or four lousy ones to follow. Eventually, we'll get summer conditions, but we're all hard pressed to keep abreast of the pattern shifts that are occuring with the horrible weather patterns that we seem to be stuck in. Middle Ground is on the wane, and Wasque is only just starting to go off. Be wary of some of the new shoals in the rips there. Some are as shallow as two or three feet deep; loaded with bass and loaded with 500 lb. seals making a meal of them. Some of the slightly deeper rips are holding fish, but it really hasn't gotten good as of yet. Tom Shoal has been the hot spot of the last 10 days, for both the wire trollers and the fly rodders who don't mind using a full sinking line. Big herring or squid type flies have been working, and though dredging with the wand is my least favorite activity, it has been effective and there is the chance of picking up fish upwards of thirty pounds. Bluefish are still fairly abundant on the surface and in the rips, ranging from six to thirteen pounds."

"Fishing is good, the weather has been pretty poor, but you have the moon working for you this weekend I believe. Bass haven't come in real strong yet, but you can still find plenty around including on the middleground, where fish can be found on both coming and going tides, just not on the slack ( I still caught a keeper last week on the slack). Wasque and Chappy are great, lots of nice blitz. ... The afternoon going tide at Wasque was where I found the best action. 3 hrs after high tide to be more specific. All the fish you can reel in."

"I was on Chappy all last week. These next few days could be really good. Wasque rips had some nice schools of 6-9 lb. blues. There were some bass there too at times. I only caught small ones there though. Down the beach some I definiitely saw some nice bass taken - above 40 inches. On my last day I caught a 34" bass on the fly in Katama Bay of all places.

"But it was spotty and a little hard to read. I think it will just get better and better in the next couple of weeks."

"Great conditions for sightfishing yesterday. Lots of sun and light wind. Started SW of the drop spot around 8:30 and water was a little cool. Only saw several schools of blues, bigger schools has smaller fish and the small pods had bigger fish. Lost a few flies, time to move.

"Re-reouted North of the drop spot. Water was noticabley warmer and tide was starting to fall. From 9:45-12:00 there was one school of fish after another. Truly amazing. Every 5 minutes you would see like 20+ bass coming from 80yrds away. The bass are real dark this time of year. I was giggling out loud!! Most of the bass were ~20-26" and would easiy inhale the squid fly. Every time I released a fish and looked up, another school was closing in. The small pods of big bass(30"+) were real skittish, didn't land any. The schoolies and the blues(some 10+lbs) would swim up so close it was surprising, unlike later in the season. You could see the yellow of the toothy forked-tail blues. Easily saw a few hundred fish, no exaggeration. It just sucks when you know that you can only catch 1 fish per school. Oh well, can't complain about that"

"Wow how things can change from one day to the next.

"I headed out this morning with Sage Fly Guy for another round of sight fishing the big boys. We were OTW by 0700 in Barnstable and we headed out to the flats. We arrived and found the fish finning and feeding just like I left them yesterday. We met up with a couple friends and discussed a game plan, and then it was time to catch some fish.

"We landed a few nice blues right off, and then Sage raised the bar with a nice 38" bass. We had high hopes that this would continue all day since the tides were not even close to being what we wanted yet. The air was still and the skies were overcast. What a perfect combination! We could see the big fins sticking up out of the water a hundred yards away. We worked the fish for an hour or so when things started to get slow. The wind was picking up and some storm clouds were moving in from the NE. We decided to run up the beach to see if the fish were continuing in the direction they had been moving. We got up to a small creek and found a few fish on top, along with a small pod of dolphins. We got a few small fish from there along with one barely legal bass.

"The storm cloud was almost over us, so we ducked into a little cove for some protection. We got lucky and the cloud passed over a few miles away from us and we were spared a soaking. We ran back to our starting spot but things were dead. After the storm went by we couldn’t find a fish in the area. After a couple hours of searching we headed to the flat where Jimi and I had done well a week ago. When we arrived we saw a few big fish cruising and it wasn’t long before I scored with a fat 34" fish. Sage got a few in the upper 20"s and I was able to land a nice blue around 32". Another boat was on the flat and whenever we would set up a drift, they would power 40 yards in front of us and start theirs! Happened 3 times before we decided to search for quieter waters.

"On the way back to Barnstable we fished a few spots without any luck. When we got there we decided to try a few of the troughs that were emptying off the near dry flats. We were rewarded with Twinkie Fest 2003. On every cast we would have dozens of 12" to 16" bass fighting to eat the fly. I got micro of the year award with a fish that barely was over 8" long. After a few dozen of the little guys we headed in to the now dry ramp. Good thing there is another ramp nearby or we’d still be waiting for water. Overall a decent day. The morning started strong, with the only issue being me breaking another fly rod. I have a bad habit when landing small fish of over bending the rod to get the line close and with these super fast rods that doesn’t work. 8" off the tip of the new 10wt. Than god for Lifetime Warranty. The water temp was 64 and the wind was calm, becoming brisk NE. The skies were overcast with light rain several times. Lures of choice were a specially rigged Fin S that Sage dreamed up. Yo-Zuri’s placed second. All the schoolies were caught on sand eel flies. Final tally, one 38"er one 34"er, a good number of smaller bass, and a couple big blues. Not a day like we’ve been having, but not a bad one."

"Tried my luck at a Sandwich creek yesterday. Nada. Saw very little bait and no birds except a few ospreys near the nests. Usually see fish scattering from under the yak as I paddle in but not a one visible to my eyes. Talked to a couple of others who have said too much rain, too cold but one guy summed it up with Monday’s weather being toooooo nice."

AT Grimaldi fished the same: "I fished this water a week or so ago and go nothing and saw nothing. Then, on Saturday, on my way home, I stopped by with only 1 rod and a Bunker Wildeye tied to it.

"1 cast landed my a 14" schoolie. I know that is no big deal,but I love fishing the area so much that any signs of life is a great thing. If I had more time,I would have tried further into the creek."

"If we're all talking about the same Sandwich Creek (there are only two I know of), then I am happy to report that yesterday morning at the top of the high tide there were a good number of fish banging around the upper part of the creek where I made a brief stop on the way to work. Better still--and for the first time all spring--I saw those masses of sand eels jetting around, the near complete absence of which had had me quite worried. Unfortunately, I didn't catch any of these fish, but they were slurping off the surface enough that I knew they were there. I attribute my misfortune both to the fact that I had less than 30 minutes on the water and to the fact that there was a match the hatch situation going on that I hadn't tuned into yet. Once I saw the sand eels on the way back to the car, I broke the code: 2-inch versions just as slender as you can imagine.

"Just maybe this thing will turn around now."

"What a difference a day makes,I started around 4 am wed. morning,fishing the beach on the incoming tide slowly making my way to the creek ,where I was was promptly greeted with the first bonafide striper blitz of the year,there were so many stripers crashing and breaking the surface you'd swear it was a late August early September bunker maul.It turned out to be sandeels,a huge school when the sky was bright enough to see the beach for over 300 yds along the shore was covered with 3-4 in. sandeels.There was a good variety of the size of the stripes largest caught was 39 ".I went back today the 12th ,there were fish there but not as many or as agressive."

 

 

Apologies again for the sparse report, next week will see a return to something a bit better.

Thanks