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Cape Cod and the Islands
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Some may have been lucky enough to travel and fish this past winter to warmer destinations for bones or maybe reds. Others may have been crazy enough try their luck at steelheading in Pulaski, or dredging for holdovers and the occasional searun trout at Scorton Creek. In any case, it's a sure thing that we're all ready for another great summer fishing the cape for stripers.
The season has started off strong and steady this year with a plentiful amount of small stripers flooding the May progressed nicely with some sub-keeper to keeper size fish making their debut along the south side in spots like the Cotuit Narrows, Bass River and similar locales. A solid influx of bait in all varieties supercharged the action with large squid, bunker, sand eels silversides and even some large shad available at one time or another. As the month progressed, stripers prowled further up the deep edges near the flats and along the beaches where they became targets for anglers. A strong north wind shut down the fish for a bit, but early morning on calmer days made floating lines, bangers, gurglers and crease flies effective tools for surface action. Now on the cusp of the peak season, pre-Memorial day has shown lots of little linesiders swarming some of the flats near Chatham with some sizeable fish in the mix. Barnstable Harbor area and the coves along Pleasant Bay are also producing good numbers of fish when the conditions are right. There are some early reports of larger migrating stripers not far off. Up the Cape at Nauset inlet, you might try your luck for an early trophy. So, if you haven't already, tune your reel, tie your flies, and check your waders for leaks. Get out there and wet a line. The fish are here! You won't catch them without getting out there. |
inlets, ponds and estuaries all around Cape Cod. Mid-April showed the first signs of schoolies, quickly increasing to large numbers with a particular concentration in the favorite early season haunt known as "The Tub" in Chatham. At times the fish were so thick there it was hard not to hook up. Depth charge lines, and chartreuse Clousers were the weapons of choice to reach the deep holding early fish. | NEWS |
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Buzzards Bay
Capt. Bob Paccia of Shore-line Guide Service reports: Those of you who have read any of my past reports or articles have heard me go on and on about the virtues of using big flies when targeting big fish. The old adage, "Big bait, big fish" still holds true. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you can't catch large stripers on small flies. Under the right circumstances, that's the only thing that they'll hit. However, in Cape Cod during May and June you're in the height of the herring migration and the striper food of choice is herring... It's especially true this year, with the extremely low numbers of herring returning to our runs, big stripers are only too eager to grab any herring or reasonable counterfeit that passes their way. With the scarcity of alewives and blueback herring in our waters and the lack of fishing pressure from herring live-liners and chunkers, fly fishermen have a unique opportunity of hooking into a real trophy-size bass, but you've got to "match the hatch" with big flies. What do I consider as big flies? Fly patterns in the range of 6 1/2" to 13" qualify as big flies. Big stripers prefer to stay down deep, facing up-current and will use any type of structure as an ambush site. They prefer areas with strong currents which will bring confused baitfish tumbling to them. Stripers' powerful, broad tails allow them to rush out and grab a meal in the strongest currents. Knowing the feeding habits of these larger stripers, tells us that we'll need to get our big flies down deep into fast moving currents. My preference would be to use a full sinking fly line (usually one or two line weights heavier than the fly rod is rated for). This allows us to get off a good quick cast with a minimum of two backcasts. Also, the heavier line weight will sink quickly and is better equipped to turn over the big flies. A short tapered leader that is no more than 6' long including a 20# fluorocarbon tippet. We tie the fly on with a non-slip mono-loop knot which helps give the fly a lot of action in the deep currents. By casting up-current and letting the line sink as it goes by us we can often get the fly line down to 18 to 20 feet. By keeping an eye on the sounder we can determine where the fish are holding and from that guage how deep our lines should go. In my next report I'll go over what to look for when you are buying or tying your own big flies. I you have any questions you can call or e-mail me. Tight lines, but not too tight, |
I know what you're thinking, "How in the hell can you cast flies of that size!" The answers are, carefully and with practice. You'll also need to modify some of your equipment as well as your casting and stripping techniques. There is one more thing that you have to take into account. Are you willing take quality over quantity? These larger flies tend to discourage schoolies.
The South Side
Terry Nugent of RipTide Charters reports: En route to our spot I found some birds working on the FAC water and we pulled up to take a look. Tom and Steve began to cast under the birds and soon Tom was tight to the first fish of the day on the fly. After a tussle I landed the fish and Tom had accomplished goal number one. The fish was 30" on the fly! We continued to work the fish for a while but they were picky and the current was ripping, only allowing the guys a cast or two before we were way out of range. They took a few more fish but no more keepers from this group. Then, and even more recent report, from today in fact: We ran into about 20' of water and out of the fog came 1000's of BIG birds. Then on the I was even more happy that I had taken back claim to the biggest bass on my boat for the Sis was thrilled to see her Dad land such an awesome fish on the little gear. She is a great angler and knows what it takes to pull something like that off. With Dad and I on the board it didn't take Sis long to get in on the act and soon she had a big fish of her own on the light gear. |
weather, and fortunately today was looking like the weather gods would shine down on us. We launched at 0530 from Falmouth and headed to the area I've been fishing for the past few days. The big difference for today was the guys wanted to fly fish. In particular they wanted keepers on the fly. Tom had only gotten 2 fish to 29" on the fly and Steve was still without his keeper. 
FAC water we began to see huge boils and big shouldered fish rolling. All we had on the boat was the heavy jigging rods and the new St Croix Avids with 10# rigged for small stuff. So we grabbed the light gear and began casting to the boiling fish. I tied on a Salty's Popper and heaved it with the light rod right into a big boil. I began to work the plug and saw this HUGE head come out of the water behind the lure. The fish missed and I sped up the popper. On the second attempt the fish came at the lure from the side and this time I saw the whole fish and he didn't miss! The line came peeling off the little Penn 360 as the fish tore away into the current. I told Mike it was a good fish and after about 10 minutes of working the fish up from the bottom I found out how good. The fish weighed 30.5# on the digital scale! IT had a big fat belly and a ton of sea lice on it. I was PUMPED! That was a hell of a fish on basically a schoolie rod and it took a popper! 
season. It had been a 29#er a sport had pulled up on a jig a week ago. Well just as I told MIke I had the big fish for the boat, he hooks up on the other light rod. This fish took a Storm shad on the drop and it was melting line off Mikes reel. After loosing nearly half the spool I convined Mike to let me go after the fish with the boat. I was able to get on top of the fish for him and let him fight it with less line out. The entire time he fought the fish he kept telling me "I'ts going to be 31#, I'm going to take biggest fish for the boat away from you" I got a glimpse at the fish and it looked about 18#. Little did I realize the fish was still REALLY deep. When it came up and rolled Mike said with a smile "See I told you 31#" I still wasn't convinced, but when he got the brute to the boat and I grabbed the lower jaw WITH BOTH HANDS, I knew I was in trouble. The scale told the tale and damn if the fish didn't weight 31.2#!!! He said he "willed it to be that big"
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Martha's Vineyard
South beach has been producing some of the bigger fish – a 31-pounder, and a 25-pounder in the last few days, but that area is tough for fly fishing. A few anglers have been doing well fly fishing at Lobsterville, near dogfish bar, and the Cape Pogue gut has been good, too, especially at night. For boat fishermen, Middle Ground is starting to heat up as the waves of fish are showing up, especially when the tide is flowing east on the dropping tide. |
Nantucket
Lynne Heyer of Cross Rip Outfitters reports: |
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Chatham, Monomoy and the Outer Beaches
Matt from the Chatham Tackle Shop was bullish on the fly fishing opportunities around town. He said that there are fish in the sound, where the water is warming, but especially in the areas ponds. Matt said that there are schoolies, shad AND even some weakfish being caught in placed lie the Mill Pond and in the Oyster River in Chatham. He's been fishing with poppers, but these schoolies are eager to take a variety of flies. Randy Jones - http://www.yankeeangler.com - Fishing Reports of Yankee Angler reports: Sight fished to some nice big pods of numerous DUMB Migrating Bass today in the shallows off the outer Cape beaches today with the fly and spin rod. Smaller worked best in ANY color, pattern, lure, as is usual for this time of year if conditions are right. Few HONK'a's in the mix. |
North Side
Jeff Smith of Finaddiction Charters reports: Today we hit PB in the am...Tide was 3/4 down and we hit some spots we have done well at over the years. Caught many dinks and had beautiful squid chasing our flies to the boat....Once I saw that I put a amber and white meathead on a floater and fished it hard....NADA....We fished the incoming for a couple hours with nothing to show for it so loaded up the boat and hit the bay and ran to the infamous Cheese Locker hoping for some topwater flyrodding action....We caught several mid 30 inch bass here in shallow water in the back bays....Great fun but you need to stick with it to put fish in the boat. |
caught. A few legal fish on the fly and light spinner but overall we worked hard for what we caught.