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November 21, 2009

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Cape Cod & the Islands August 22nd, 2003

FishWire Coordinator:	Dave Churbuck
Navigation Aids:

Mack attack, ack, ack, ack

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The 2004 Reel-Time Calendar
This is sweet...a years worth of fabulous pictures of Reel-Timers in action. A must have! 19.99 plus shipping

Last week I gave a little history lesson into the early days of online fishing news, especially on the Internet. I talked about USENET and alt.fishing and rec.outdoors.fishing, the flyfish listserv at U. Kentucky and SALT-L. This week I'll talk about the rise of the web and the first sites that jumped into the new medium in the early and mid-90s. First a quick, quick history of the world wide web.

Online communication was text-based up until 1993-94. The Internet, CompuServe, The Source, The WELL ... all were just words and one moved around by typing commands such as GO and POST. There was no "clicking" on icons, buttons, or other navigation aids. You had to learn the specific instructions and type them in to get anywhere. This state of affairs tended to keep out anyone but the geekiest users, and so online fishing communities tended to be small and populated by people with engineering, academic or scientific backgrounds.

In the early 90s, the government announced that it would no longer be funding the maintainance of the Internet through grants to the National Science Foundation, and that it would begin to allow commercial useage. Prior to that, only universities, military installations, and scientific institutions could use the Internet. In the early 90s, the door was opened to the first commercial or "com" accounts (dot.com refers to commercial), and corporations could use it, as well as individuals. The first internet service provider for the public was based in Boston -- World.com at Software Tool and Die.

Around the same time, an American researcher working in Geneva, Switzerland -- Tim Berners-Lee -- developed the first protocols for what has become known as the world wide web. The WWW was initially text only, but permitted anyone to be a web site and encode links in documents that would lead to other websites. A few versions later and graphics could be included.

The result is one of the biggest revolutions in communications history. Instead of typing "go" one could click on a button that said "go". That's it. That's why the Web changed the world. People rather click than type. Well, partially.

The first fishing web sites that were more than an engineer's pictures of his trout, were the Virtual Fly Shop, which was developed by a pair of users from the Flyfish LISTSERV, Lou Bignami's Fine Fishing Magazine, Web Masters International (WMI), and Reel-Time: The Internet Journal of Saltwater Flyfishing.

There are many others of course, but the critical first year was the spring of 1995, when sites such as this one began offering discussion forums, or bulletin boards, which attempted to duplicate the community structures that began on USENET and in the email listservs.

We started off with a very simple system called Hypermail that was designed to archive emails to a listserv into a web-navigable format. Our founder, Thorne Sparkman, who worked at Time-Warner Electronic Publishing, paid a programmer to install and modify Hypermail for us. We launched it in the summer of 1995, and had multiple forums for different geographical regions and topics. Our intent was to provide a service, but to focus on publishing these fishing reports and feature articles about fly fishing. Little did we know that the tail would wag the dog.

I was the moderator and administrator of the first system -- now fondly remembered as BBS-5 after the name of the file where the community lived. I would flush the system into an archive at the beginning of the month, and start the new forum with instructions such as:

"Welcome to the latest installment of the Reel-Time New England BBS.

Regulars to this forum can ignore these instructions, but if you are new, here are some simple tips.

The sort-by-date function is broken, always has been, always will. Therefore
PUT THE DATE OF YOUR POST IN THE SUBJECT BOX!!!!

This makes life much easier for everyone who wants to see what's new and what's not.

Second rule: PRESS POST MESSAGE ONLY ONCE!!
Don't worry, your words are being written to the server. Press the button four times and guess what, your post will be written four times and you will look like a dolt. Don't look like a dolt. Press the button once and be patient. As more messages are written, the posting process takes longer.

Third rule: Eat your peas and sit up straight and don't try to sell stuff in here. Reel-Time depends on advertisers who pay their bills, people trying to slip in a freebie for their guide service, miracle lure, or naked bait girls want to meet you website get away with it once. only once.

This forum will go until it gets too big to handle, at which time it will archived.

Have fun, tight lines, and happy posting ... "

Ah, the good old days. The problem with our Hypermail system was the lack of moderation tools. This meant that someone could log on, post a nasty message, and claim that Ronald Reagan wrote it. There was no way to block idiots, kills posts (easily), and maintain order. Chaos was inevitable as more people flocked to Reel-Time. Finally, by 2000, Reel-Time was in crisis.

Next week, I'll talk about the Mutiny of 2000 and Reel-Time's renaissance.

Keep those reports coming!

Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...

Tight Lines!

Dave Churbuck

Cape Cod Regions

NEWS

Offshore the story is dolphin-dorado-mahi-mahi. Inshore, it's bait, lots of peanut bunker, 1.5" sandeels, and juvie squid; that means false albies and spanish macks to the western side of our reporting area. Nice surface bass at Monomoy. Snapper blues in the bays. Canal is blowing hot and cold. Northside reports are few.

Buzzards Bay

Captain Joe LeClair at North Eastern Anglers filed this report:
"Fly fishing and light tackle fishing with topwater poppers for large Bluefish this past couple weeks has been excellent. We have landed Bluefish to 16 lbs. and many average around 8-9 lbs. In the early morning there are Striped Bass 15-25 lbs. mixed in with the Blues.

"I have also been fishing offshore with the flies and light tackle and have found skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna, bluefin tuna, and many small mahi-mahi. In the last few days we have had a few decent shots at Bonito and False Albacore inshore. With the abundance of bait in Buzzards Bay the fishing for
these small tunas should be excellent in the next couple weeks."

(apologies to Capt LeClair for missing the past few weeks, a combo of bad email addresses and my ISP deciding that he belonged on their blacklist ((which he didn't)) was the source of his silence)

Falmouth & the Elizabeths

Funny splashes in the bays of the Elizabeth Islands mean funny fish. Spanish Macks up along the Buzzard's Bay's Falmouth shore.

BEBokelkamp emailed this report:

"Found more Spanish Macks on Sunday. I had passed a couple groups of working birds, as they didn't seem intent. There's enough bait out there, I've seen terns working schools of bait without any blitzing going on. Nevertheless, my search in the various coves in Buzzards Bay last Sunday had me into more Spanish Mackerel. This time they were in a small cove near Silvershell Beach on the Cape side of Buzzards Bay.

"The birds would only work the surface sporadically. The terns would swoop and I'd see a Mack porpoise as it crashed through the bait, and then all would be quiet. The fish were spooky and I had to approach carefully and slowly, cut my motor, and be prepared to work the area for a while. I managed three Macks throwing a swedish pimple on 10# fluorocarbon leader. The macks are swimming so fast they slam the lure. On one cast I was hit three times hard, with the last hit finally snagging a Spanish. I'm guessing three fish hit it, with the first two figuring out it was a little too crusty to be the usual bait, dropping it, and the last one happened to get snagged on the small treble hook."

The Cape Cod Canal

Bill Downing posted on Thursday:

"Fished a hour or two on either side of the turn to the east last night, this time mostly with live eels. Only one pickup in a few hours. Nothing on jigs, although I didn't fish them much. The east tide has been a bust for me since June.

"Nowhere near the bait around of a couple of outings ago and no breaking fish other than the usual micros in the rocks. But that'll change."

BobG continued the report:

"Not much of a report. Hard S/W wind made finding the bottom tough.
2.5 hours of casting produced one hit, one fish. 30" foul hook bass which was released."

The South Side

Curt Jessup at The Sporting Life in Mashpee Commons reported,

"Had a great day offshore last wednesday with mahi, an oceanic bonito, a mako, and some blue sharks. Right now, false albacore and spanish mackerel in Buzzard's Bay. People think the spanish macks are bonito, but they are definitely not. Lots of 34" stripers on the surface out at Monomoy."

Your humble correspondent fished around Waquoit and Succonnesset on Wednesday. Lots of bluefish action in close on balls of peanut bunkers. I swear I saw porposing albies or bonito off of State Beach. The rips are filled with 1.5" sand eels. Fluking was good, but I expect the bonito/spanish mackerel action to warm up this weekend as this heatwave and southwesterly breezes will continue to push the tropical fishies further north every day.

Bob Parsons reports on Thursday:

"I worked the area around Waquoit over towards Succonnessit out to Hedge this morning and nothing. not even the mass of blues from a couple days past. Picked up the wife and crossed over to MV about noon. Oak bluffs, State Beach and Egertown ...nada. "

Earlier in the week, Bob reported:

"I think the bluefish are putting on the feedbag bigtime, hope the leave some bait for the tunnies.
Mouth of Waquoit 6am had several large areas of blues blitzing. They took everything I offered, and kept most of it. I had to keep making longer and longer bite leaders to land one. They were as aggressive as they get. Using the glass half full optismism I might have had on tunoid on judging by the way the line moved in the water and went SNAP.
Explored towards Succonesset and found several spanish macks leaping out of the water. No hits though. Cross wakes with Paul on the Too Fly. Thanks for the help with the flies Paul."

Martha's Vineyard

Captain Leslie Smith is back in the brine after a two-week break in the Great West. After a day of hunting bluefin, she filed this report:

"It seems that everyone has tuna fever right now, whether it be for bonito and albies, or their larger cousins, the bluefin and yellowfin. Offshore fishing is very much hit or miss, unless you are interested in mahi mahi. These colorful fish can be found around almost any high flyer but for the most part are on the small side. Inshore for bonito, the hot spot has been the Oak Bluffs Steamship pier but there are twenty boats working it at any given time. Edgartown has had a few fish out towards the windmill but still no real consistent action. Most of the fish have been coming in from the Hooter, with some success on fly when anchoring up on the slack tide. Once the tide runs, be prepared to start losing flies, as the bluefish are like piranhas. Word has it that the first of the albies and spanish macks have arrived along the south shore of the Cape, feeding on very, very small baby bunker."

Nantucket

Bill Pew says things have picked up significantly on Nantucket this past week.

"There's been an increase in the number of bonito caught at the Bonito Bat as well as out at Great Point from the beach. Not huge numbers, but it's good fishing. There is also a second-hand report of a spanish mackerel caught from the beach at Great Point. They're hitting small metals and chartreuse over white Deceivers.

"Blues are everywhere, consistently being caught at Great Point from the beach. Some bass were caught from the south shore on pearl and black Bombers. They were in close enough that the flyrodders returned to chase them the next day.

"And of course, there is plenty of mahi-mahi ten to twelve miles out."

On Monday, Cross Rip Outfitters reported:

"Did anyone say Slam. We've had a couple over the last couple days. Most of the slams have been on the Bonito bar. Yes that's right on the bar. Andrew Mayer has fished the last couple days on the bar and flats with his Dad, Bill Mayer. Andrew and Bill caught there first Bones and Andrew caught landed his first slam. The Mayer have had two awesome days on the water. Today the Mayers and thier guest fished with Capt.Shawn and the guest caught his first slam, his first time fishing.The Bonito were fast and furious with multiple hookups and many fish. With awesome fishing the Mayer men came into the shop and made the rest of us awful green with envy. "

The Outer Beaches, Chatham & Monomoy

As Curt Jessup reports in the south shore section, there are some nice fish on the surface in the rips on baby squid.

Striblu went east, waaaay east, like 20 miles east, to find some bluefin on the spinning rod.

MKDeceiver reports:

"Made trek out to the bars on Saturday as a solo angler...All friends, girlfriend, Uncle and randoms were unable to make trip...

Within minutes of getting to the bars I saw fish. Unfortunately the wind, surf and incoming tide made it nearly impossible to throw a crab. Realizing that I would probably just get frustrated trying to present to these fish, I moved to a more advantageous spot to see and cast to fish on the incoming. Tide brought in some nice sized fish mostly traveling in groups of 3 with the occational solo jumbo pig cruising through. There were also some small ratty size fish traveling in groups of 5-10 that were chasing this small 1 inch bait that was all over the place.

Here are my stats:

10 Presentations (getting fly in front of fish)
8 Follows (Sent 2 PIGS a mile away)
6 inhales (my crab getting sucked up by big fish)
2 for 6 on Setting hook
2 for 2 on Landing fish
23-28lb's
Fish mortality rate 50%(No way I wasn't taking some dinner)

Overall the tide was decent at best. There are maybe a 3rd of the fish around that were here in early July. I could have increased my stats, but there was no way I was going to throw a small clouser to 16-18inch helpless babies(Things aren't that slow yet)... The fish were surprisingly not that fat for being in the 31-34 inch range. Also no lice present, these fish have been around for a long, long time.....

CRABS...WORK EVERY TIME!!!"

BassRiverFlyGuy reports from Nauset Inlet:

"We got to the point about 6am and worked the inlet from the shore and in a skiff. Lots of great fish landed (29-41") all from my fishing partner who was jigging a large chartuese and white jig off the bottom. I was on the fly and got skunked, however the first-timer Fly Rodder to Nauset standing next to me hooked up onto a nice 32" fish in 3-4' of water right in front of me with a sand eel pattern I suggested. Luck I guess.....We have been seeing great fish everytime we have been there but they haven't been feeding, this was the best day we have had at Nauset all year. What an incredible place! It has been holding great fish straight through the worst time of the season. As my friend put it "It's like the Bass River in June on Steriods""

The North Side

Pax fished Sandwich Creek earlier in the week:

"Fished the creek from 4:30pm to 8:30pm. Overcast sky, North East wind, outgoing tide. Almost perfect setup except that the fish did not bite. Tried all size of clouser, half&half, soft hackle sand eel and epoxy sand eel. Not a bump. A dozen fishermen there using spin, bait or fly. Didn't see a fish caught. With the exception of one sight, I didn't really see any bait in the water."

Keep those reports coming,

Cape Cod &

the Islands