Cape Cod &

the Islands

September 26th, 2003

First Fishwire of the Fall!

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

Tight Lines!

Dave Churbuck

Buzzards Bay

Bret Bokelkamp emailed:
"Juvenile bluefish have finally hit the Bay in numbers. I've heard of reports of them, but had never seen them myself all summer. So it was a pleasant surprise, even if only juveniles, to have them in the East end of Buzzards Bay. Generally in an area bound by the Canal, Bird Island, and the Weeweantic River. Found them working non stop on baby bunker. This was true both Saturday morning and Monday morning. On Monday they were working in very calm and bright sunny conditions, but even that made the bluefish a bit warry of the approach of the boat. It continued all day. The birds never let up.

"Speaking of birds, the tern colony at Bird Island has already left for the season. Still, there must be other colonies, as there are still a few terns on the Bay. The gulls are worthless.

"This past Monday was a very unusual day for this area. Anyone on the water on Monday will know what I mean. I have never seen both Buzzards Bay AND Vineyard Sound without a ripple! Calmer than most pond water on the Cape. What a treat. And being a Monday, we had the Bay to ourselves. You could see 6-8 miles over the water and could easily see every boat on the Bay within that distance. My travel time between Marion and Woods Hole was under 20 minutes, a record for me, and I was cruising back at my usual 3,500 rpm."

Falmouth & the Elizabeths

Bret Bokelkamp continues:
" Found Albacore ( a guess) on the Buzzards Bay side of Woods Hole. VERY skittish, given that the water was flat calm, not a breath of wind, and very bright sun. A few folks chasing them, carefully, but I didn't see any caught. Encountered more Albies outside of Lackey's Bay. Again very skiddish and they would work a pod of bait on the surface for maybe a minute, go down, and surface a 150 yards away. The birds would sit on the water and wait until the Albies re-surfaced, then fly over to the new commotion, only to have the noise abait about the time they arrived. I could never quite get my timing right."

"Monday still takes my breath away. If you stopped to stalk the albacore, you could barely hear a sound, without any wind and only a very few boats at some distance."

Paul Coyne emailed:

"False Albacore fishing has finally turned on in Buzzards Bay. Schools are on the small side and a bit scattered but they are out all day until sunset. Our boat has caught eight so far in the past week and, until yesterday, sea and air conditions have been near perfect. A lack of boats hasn't hurt either. Went out yesterday in very choppy seas and had our first double hook-up on a school that stayed up long enough to get in four casts and a boat maneuver. Some nice rollers made for an interesting scene as we both fought our fish and tried to remain vertical on the 20' Whaler. Both fish picked up a considerable amount of seaweed which stressed our 10lb test to the limit as we boated them. Ran into a huge school of 25"+ stripers two days ago which was a nice beginning to the Albie hunt. Bluefish were everywhere last week but seemed to have subsided a bit."

ChuckD writes:
Albie blitzes up and down the Vineyard side of the Elizabeths. Bass and blues on top as well. Loads and loads of bait, peanut bunker as well as silversides and juvy herring. Time-wise morning seemed to be the best action. Look for the birds..."

The Cape Cod Canal

When Bill Downing suggests you go fish the canal, well, you go fish the canal:

"Caught the first part of the west tide last night. A slight improvement, with a half dozen schoolies caught, just nothing of any size. All down deep and had to be worked hard with jigs. The guys nearby were pretty much catching the same cookie cutters. Eventually, reel and tangle problems forced me off the rocks a bit early. It's quite possible the late part of the tide may have been the ticket, but couldn't stay.

"New moon tonight gang. Get out there and fish it!"

PClaus reports:
"I fished the east end last night from 9 to midnight and managed a couple of schoolies and one nice hookup that I didn't get in due to a poor hookset. (It's one of those situations where you look back and say "what in the world was I thinking?")

"I was using plastic, while a couple of buddies were using eels. They had the same results I did - a few schoolies along with a cigar butt or two."

Skunkbuster wrote earlier in the week:

"Worked most of the West tide last night in Sandwich. Bass feeding near the surface were plentiful and aggressive. I couldn't get any hits using big rubber in the rips so just targeted the schoolies, which up till now have been real fussy.

"Lost count of how many fish landed, 20-30, all of them 20-27 inches and nice and fat. The fun part was sight casting around midnight to a pod of fish I saw cruising through under the lights, and landing one.

"Lure of choice was a 3" storm wildeye in "bunker" color. It wasn't a fish on every cast, had to hit the drift right so that the lure was running away and not cutting across the feeding lanes, but a nice night fishing even if it was just shorts."

The South Side

Paul Coyne continues:
"Last week, on the way home from a successful Buzzards Bay trip I was driving along Menahant Beach looking out into the Sound as usual. As I approached the seawall a mile or so East of Maravista Ave. I noticed bird activity right at the beach. Closer inspection showed about 50 yards of Bluefish slashing bait literally on the sand and rocks at near low tide. I grabbed a light rod, jumped on the cement sea wall and cast into them out of habit. Not much sport but an instant hook-up. Only problem was I was about 8' above them with a 10+ pound Blue on a 6'6" graphite 6 - 10lb rod. Haven't seen shore action like that in 20 years."

Coffee Chris writes:
"Hey Dave: just fished your home waters Monday to find lots of blues, finicky Spanish Mac's and Albies all mixed together. The fishing was incredibly frustrating as the persistent blues kept thinning my fly selection. Also the bait was incredibly small. It appeared as though the albies were just charging the bait balls and just inhaling large gulps of bait ( which appeared to be silversides, not bay anchovies as I had first guessed). I couldn't seal the deal with the Albies, I varied retrieves and tried every trick I knew to no avail. Very frustrating..Had a Spanish Mac up to the boat and just when I thought I had dinner in hand the bugger cut me off !!! I did manage about 15 blues. Just to redeem myself I went out that night to Nauset and caught a nice Bass. I'm feeling much better now. Any tips from anyone fishing that C area would be aprecciated."

Martha's Vineyard

Leslie Smith isn't reporting this week.

Paul Coyne reports:

"Friends on the Vineyard side have been complaining that "there were big schools of Bluefish everywhere but we couldn't catch them no matter what we did." After a trip out it was clear they were also Albacore but I was also unable to hook-up. Bluefish of good size have been busting everywhere."
 
Theibis reports:

"Just returned from my second trip to the Vineyard. Albie action is getting better by the day. They are starting to move in to shore with the best action being at Menemsha in the afternoon. Edgartown Light is still slow by comparison, but you can still luck out there in the early morning. We were finally able to hook up at the Menemsha jetty on the last day of the trip. Luckily, no boats were coming through to cut the lines! I would guess that anyone thinking about heading over there now wouldn't be disappointed. Next stop: Cape Lookout in November!"

Zimmjas reported:

"2 were caught off the West Basin jetty (one on a white bonito bunny) at Menemsha and a another off the Menemsha side yesterday afternoon on the incoming. The bight itself isn't too hot as there weren't a lot of pods around (but from 1pm to 5pm I had 3 shots from West Basin side). South side of the Cape was unbelievable yesterday morning with bluefish as far as the eye could see (literally!) with some albies mixed in and the occasional mackrel. I spent the last 8 days on the island and those $%#! albies either wouldn't take, I messed up the cast, or I just couldn't strip fast enough to set the hook"

Nantucket

Slater wrote:

"FIshed the island from Friday through Sunday from shore and charter. Nothing from shore and only bluefish from the charter. From shore we fished Eel Point, Cisco, and Great Point - nothing, not even a hit. From the boat we fished the rips between Smiths Point and Tuckernuck and then headed for the south side about a mile or so offshore. Lots of big blues but no bass, bonito, or albies seen all weekend. The remnants of Isabel were still apparent with big seas and dirty water for most of the weekend. You sure haven't missed anything..."

Capt. Lynne Heyer at Cross Rip Outfitters reports:

"Albies! Albies!! Albies!! Fresh report of Albiers being caught up at Great Point from the beach. Also Capt. Jeff is on the water right now catching them. He didn't specify where he was, but I know it is between Madaket and Great Point. Probably closer to the Point. Good news also from the flats yesterday. Philly B. (Mom) saw lots of big fish yesterday. She didn't land any, but was very excited to see that the fish were still there. Dust off those rods and get back out there."

Bill Pew at Fisher's Tackle reports:

"False albacore have finally arrived in massive numbers. They're catching a few a day at Great Point on Deadly Dicks. Also some being caught at the west end from boats with fly rods using white bunnies.  Some ten to 12 pound bluefish are being caught on the east side below the galls. Bass fishing, for the most part, is mysterious. I'm not hearing a lot right now."

The Outer Beaches, Chatham & Monomoy

No reports from the region this week, but I'll post something as soon as it arrives.

The North Side

This is the hot spot for Reel-Timers fishing the past week.

Capt. Joe LeClair reports,

"Fly fishing for bluefin tuna has been excellent when the weather is good. We have a landed a few around 80 lbs. in the last week. They were all fish that we worked very hard for. The tuna are feeding on baby bunker right now. This has to be one of the greatest challenges the sport of fly fishing can offer an experienced angler."

Bassbuster writes:

"Great day out yesterday, as I mentioned earlier. This day I didn't mind the first cast blues as hooking up and boating a nice one that came in just under 60 lbs. The bay was a little sloppy which did not help to spot the activity. Binoculars were the key to locating the fish or birds. We ran out past the gurnet on path to Race Pt, periodicaly stopping to check out the surroundings. We were able to get parallel to a large school which were feeding underneath the surface. These ones would stay feeding longer than the busting schools and you were able to get more casts into them before they dove down. There were pretty much only two other curteous boats out there working the schools w/us. The week end might be a different story though. Keep in mind if you find un cooperative boater and/or fish just move on, there's probably another school nearby and maybe more cooperative.
We had one other hook up on a crippled herring but the line parted when the brakes were trying to be put on to qiuckly. Always remember to check your knots and inspect line for kinks, when you do hook up you don't want the tackle to be the reason. FWIW I tied my line directly. "

Bret Bokelkamp continues his wide-ranging report:
"Barnstable Harbor & North Side:
Thursday made the trip to Barnstable Harbor. There were folks putting in to chase Tuna. One of the regular tuna boats headed out with a charter mid morning. The one boat that I did see return had no tuna. My father and I fished Barnstable Harbor on an incoming tide in the 2 hours after dawn (6:33am - 8:30am). Several eruptions of schoolie bass hitting bait. Managed 8 fish in 2 hours on both small silver spoons, and a olive/white clouser fly. Largest fish was about 22 inches.

"Made the trip outside the harbor, finding more school stripers working pods of bait. Mostly twinkies though. We were not alone by now, it was about 9am. Caught a couple more. At this point the eruptions were getting fewer in number and briefer in duration. When the action quit, we headed down to Scorton Creek. Nothing going on there. The sun is up very bright by now. Continued on to the Canal. Tide still rising, drifted eels on the North side of the East end of the Canal. Wind was picking up quite a bit from the South now (originally at dawn it was light, from the East). A couple of drifts with eels produced dogfish. No need to continue. On the return ride, tried some trolling near Scortons Creek (dodging pots) in about 40' of water. Lots of fish on the fishfinder, but no takers. Seems like several folks were trying the same thing, but slow going."

Jim Lukas reports email:

"Launched at Sesuit Sat am and the Bay was FAC; we made the Race in jig time...it was minutes before we found our 1st pod of school bluefin...basically, we would stay on fish for the next four hours or so....

"Woody manned the foward battle station with a 12 weight, I had spin stuff with me, and hooked up and broke off on the second pod...the school bluefin were herding 3/4 inch peanut bunker...if we did not see birds working it was sufficient to look for what Woody termed "angry water" and approach it slowly, or calculate the drift and close on 'em that way...the Toons were in one of three modes, occasionally crashing bait- characterized by bird activity, herding and balling bait, which would build to the crashing condition some of the time, and lastly we often watched schools of 40 to 90 pound fish maurauding in search of bait...at times we would position well, have the fish pushing water toward us, get off a good fly-cast only to have 30 to 50 fish sound when the flyline hit the water, the fish passing under the Pahkah in crystal clear water so close that you could look them in the eye...remarkable...the two of us cycled from states of extreme frustration at not being able to hook-up to giddiness and awe at the beauty of it all...we musta looked like kooks!

"Woody had just recently finished a session with Master Caster Sedotti, and was good enough to demonstrate some beautiful renditions of "Do" and "Do-not" casting technique...I ran the boat perfectly, occasionally resorting to the technique of putting fish down with an excited or haphazard approach, employing the theory that by spooking the fish occasionally they might be starved into striking...still working at perfecting that approach...

"We saw 500 to 1000 fish, and had nearly 50 shots...it died mid afternoon, and it was over for the weekend...Sunday's N wind had the bay in a snot...we got out there but it was barren..did get to witness the capture of a giant on 130 class- that was neat..

"what we learned: fish were on small, small bait...fish were leader shy...one hookup was with a Acme needle eel (green) with an olive dropper fly...it's anyone's guess which he took..."

Mnicc reported earlier in the week:

"Fished from the haba to scorton ledge to billingsgate today and I saw many pods of breaking fish most schoolies and monster size blues. The haba is LOADED with fish up to keeper size and was on fire at dawn. The fingers is dead and I won't be going out there again this year. Dito with the parking lot and Scorton ledge. All the action was at Billingsgate which is loaded with some MONSTER BLUES in the 15# + range with some big bass under them. BREAKING fish from 1pm to 5 when I left.I saw some very big bass follow the blues to the boat all of which were in the 30#+ class.All in all a great day, lets see how long this can last."

Keep those reports coming,