Cape Cod and the Islands
Region

June 08, 2007

Buzzards Bay

In Buzzard's bay, there have been good numbers of sand eels at the western approach to the Canal. Bass and bluefish should be hitting smaller flies, and anglers should scan the horizon for bird action as well.

The mouths of some of the rivers in the area like the Back River, should hold some larger fish at the top of the tide and into the early outflow, according to John at Eastman's today, who was a wealth of practical infomation.

Of course with the big bait still around, finding pogies should always be in the backs of the minds of the trophy-hunting fly fisherman. Capt. Bob Paccia is an expert at fishing big flies for big fish in this part of the Cape, in fact.

Falmouth & the Elizabeths

John from Eastman's Tackle in Falmouth reports:

There are pretty much schoolies everywhere. If you want to catch schoolies of 8 inches up to the mid-twenties, most any morning or evening at any estuary will do. I have not heard reports of worms RECENTLY, but the first full moon in May had heavy worm hatches. I think the worms might have been early this season.

[A fly angler's] best shot at decent sized fish would probably be at Waquoit Bay. There have been worm hatches there, but also BIG pogies. At a few spots, even a wading fly fishing angler would have shots at a 25 pound fish.

The Cape Cod Canal

No fly fishing reports from the Canal this week, other than from the West end, where boat anglers have been scoring.

The South Side

For boat anglers fishing along the southside, the key fact is that the squid are pretty much gone. Normally, anglers could be guaranteed great action in middle ground during May and June, but things have been slowing there somewhat.

Better fishing has been to the east, and what John from Eastman's called Halfway Shoal, which he added is really part of L'Hommedieu shoal. In general terms, and this is good year-after-year knowledge for anglers out there: most mornings you could find fish on most shoals for the 1st hour of light. Try throwing poppers, or squid. After that you have to go deep, and that will mean fast sinking lines and dredging which, while productive, is less fun. Following a discovery pattern like this will help you find where the fish are TODAY, rather than yesterday.

Martha's Vineyard

Steve Purcell of Larrys Tackle reports:

Bass up to 60 pounds!!! Thats right 60.10 pounds. Capt Dave Hearn. Guided a client to a massive 60+ pounder. He also landed a couple fish in the hi 40's. Also another good client of the shop caught and released a 52 pounder. Chris Thorton landed a 56+ pound fish Wednesday. This weekend Capt. Morgan Taylor, Chuck Wendel and I fished the Pink Squid turny. We came in second again with a 39.7 pound striper. The first place bass was 39.9 pounds. 2oz off. If we did not have to pull the bait out the fishes mouth, to get the hook out we would have won. Thats how it goes. Tons of boat fish at Toms Shoals and Wasque. Big fish on the North shore. Wednesday's fly trip produced some nice fish on middle grounds. Sunday did also early. Till the boats saw us catching fish. We had one boat throwing 2 oz pencil poppers within 2 feet of our boat. So off to the East we went. Marked tons of fish. The tide was fading away and was a little slow for us. My friend Eric stayed and boated 40 fish when the tide changed.

Shore fishing: The past winds that we had slowed down some peoples fishing. From the beach. Others are still reporting hi numbers. I think some of the fish moved around. With the hi winds and big seas we had. Your going to have to move around a little to find there new hiding spots. Probably only a couple yards or so. Still from the shore. Bait fisherman are getting a steady stream of bass on the south side. It was a little weeded up. Dunking bait has been working well. Mostly on fresh squid. A lot of fish are 15 to 20 pounds. The biggest one i heard of so far is 30 pounds. Almost everyone coming into the shop has been catching fish. Reports of fish coming from all over the island. Great reports from Menemsha Pond still and Tashmoo. Wasque is fishing good . Roberts rangers and Hopkins are fishing well. Lot of good reports. fish. Finally the old jumpin minnow is in full swing. Bass and blues hitting surface plugs, Hard. Another good one is the small blue Super Strike.

Flyfishing: Bass and blues!! falling for the flies all over the island. Almost any cove, in any of the ponds. Are going to get you hooked up all over the island. The Gut is fishing well on the hardside. Use a Chartreuse clouser drift it in the current. Letting it sink and a slow retrieve was working well. Tashmoo has had plenty of schoolies. On the clam flat just in side the entrance. Menemsha pond still has plenty of fish. With a large assortment of sizes. Plenty of reports coming from Dogfish bar and Lobsterville. Lobsterville having the big fish and Dogfish having the most. Small stripers one after another. Do not use sinking line at dogfish. Reports of skates and dogfish. Attacking the flies. My choice is Tims floating sandeel pattern or butches slow sinking sandeel. Boat Fly fishing is picking up. Middle grounds has tons of fish. Get there early or late. Did reel good last night 7pm till dusk. They were crushing squid patterns. Fishing is picking up. Thats on the North shore. Wasque rips have been fishing reel good or slow. If you catch it when it is right. You will have a blast. Some good sized fly rod fish there. Bluefish are mixed in every were.

Phil Cronin wrote:

Fishing around the Vineyard has slowed down somewhat over the last week. Now that doesn’t mean it has been bad by any stretch of the imagination. What it does mean is that we are no longer describing it as "sick", or "crazy", or "out of control". It is more like we are now seeing the normal June patterns settling in.

The boat fishing has been good, especially for those looking for bigger bass on the bottom. I spent last Friday doing just that out in the sound and we managed to bring to the boat 6 bass while dropping 2 others. The largest was in the 30lb range. All were taken with live bait sent to the bottom with 12-18 ounce weights in 50-90 feet of water. It is a far cry different then the faster pace I normally fish but it was relaxing and fun. The next two days I had the privilege of taking out the Hermann clan for some fly and light tackle pursuit of bass and blues. We concentrated on the bass the first day and managed to bring home some dinner for the family. The next day I wanted to put them on the bluefish that had invested our waters only to find that the toothy critters have thinned out and become much more finicky on top. We managed to retrieve some bluefish for the evening menu but it was not anywhere as good fishing as I had hoped. We had fun anyway and their goal of learning how to flyfish was achieved.

Shore fishing has definitely improved with loads of bass along the North Shore starting to slurp sand eels. I went down to one of my favorite spots last evening and saw many swirls just before sunset. I caught several fish on the fly using the trusty Vineyard floating sand eel but none of them gave me any bragging rights. The wind was strong and the water churned up from the passing tropical storm. It should be dynamite the next calm, misty night and I will certainly start to concentrate on night beach fishing. Captain Phil Cronin

Nantucket

Capt. Lynne of Cross Rip Outfitters is very busy, but she sent this report:

I have just gotten a report that several fish were caught at Brant Point last night. A few were landed on live bait, not my thing, but also got a report that plastics worked there very well also. From the West End of the Island I was talking with Jeff and Linda Lynch landed a 30”er on fly this morning. Congrats Linda. I also heard of Stripers being caught at Great Point. Don’t just fish the Point there is a lot of good water all over that area. Capt. Shawn also reports of bigger fish starting to show up in the rips. I also had a customer come in and told us that he landed a 12# Blue yesterday or the day before. Pretty good size Blue from the shore this ti! me of the year. Sounds good to me. I better get back to folding so I can get out there and catch a few myself.

Chatham, Monomoy and the Outer Beaches

Joe Fitzback of Top Reports reports catching lots of fish in Pleasant Bay now, especially compared to last week. There has been a mixture of blues and bass, Pleasant Bay, but mostly bass and some surprisingly big fish. There are even hickory shad. Joe even remarked "at 11 AM, right before the low, there were fish under the bright sun."  The catching sounds good there.

Minister's point, the lighthhose rocks, and a variety of other places with strong moving water constituted good strategies for Capt. Fitzback.  Joe has been throwing pink-and-white, and red-and-white Clousers to these fish.

On the sound side, while I have no flats reports this week, anglers have been finding fish from boats, starting out of Stage Harbor.  While there is still bait -- and big bait -- on the inside, running two or three miles south or west is a good strategy to discover your own pod of bait and/or fish.  You might see birds, and pogies working on the surface.

North Side

Out on Cape Cod Bay, Capt. Mike Mathews of Offshore Angler Charters reports:

Just in time for the "busy" season CCB exploded today with great LT Top water action to Stripers to 38" We left Sesuit and traveled about 45 minutes to a destination covered with birds smashing on Sharpie Marker sized 6" sand eels (See pics below). My sport and I competed hard with the massive amounts of bait using large Habs poppers and 6" sluggo's. We were out for 5 hours with another RTer that did just as well and we left the fish behind as we headed home.

Awesome day and the water!!

We have some great days available (including this Saturday!). Please check out our on-line calender below!

PS. Did I happen to mention it was a dying Northwest wind ?? That was a big theme for the best days on CCB last year!!

Tom George of Fish Pier Charters reports:

Doing some Northside stuff. Right up against Sandy Hook has been pretty good. From there to there to Chapin beach. Guys were lined up on the flats there, and others were chunking from boats. I've also been doing some fishing around Stage Harbor and Pleasant Bay. There are lots of bluefish around on top.

Curt Jessup of Cape Cod Outfitters reports:

We've been fishing on the Northside, but the north wind had made it tough. Sand eels are abundant, however, and there are huge fish over there if you know where to look. We got a 28 and 27, and 5- others that were a tad smaller fishing small and sparse, 1-3 inch sand eel patterns.

We fished the outgoing tide on the inside, and the incoming on outside, on the flats that is. Be sure to bring a sinking line with a short leader. You want to fish the edges ofthe flats, where we have been seeing bass kicking up sand eels. You can actually see them rolling and flashing on the sand eels.