Cape Cod and the Islands
Region

July 10, 2008

Buzzards Bay

At North East Anglers, Capt. Joe LeClair's been chasing the maguro.

While we have hooked up with several large Bluefin Tuna and landed around 20 already this season it is still a very difficult challenge to catch a Bluefin Tuna on the fly rod, especially when they are over 50' and in the 100 lb. class. It has been a challenge that some of the anglers that have fished with me in the past month have been willing to attempt. With the right choice of fly rod, reel, line, and backing it is just a matter of putting the right fly infront of the fish. In addition it does not hurt to know how to strip the fly line as fast a humanly possible. To do this and then fight one of these great fish to the boat is probably one of the most difficult tasks in the saltwater.

Captain Joe LeClair
North Eastern Anglers
http://www.flyfishsalt.com

Falmouth & the Elizabeths

No reports this week.  If you're out shoot me a report.

The Cape Cod Canal

It's July...it's slooooooowwwwww...

Let's let Bill Downing sum it up for us:

...But I can't say as I'm surprised since it's following the script of the last 6-7 years. June starts with a bang (a real big bang this year) but ends with a whimper. We won't talk about July, but it's usually not pretty and the appearance of decent sized stripers seems to be pretty random. Aug, especially the last half, can be good or mediocre depending on bait supply. Sept and Oct generally rock in the Ditch. Unless you can spend the $$ to make a lot of trips and/or get offshore with a boat or yak, summer's a good time to do chores (at least until the bones show up ).

The South Side

Nothing from the south side this week.  Figure on blues and bass at the Fence and within the next two weeks your gonna have tasty little speedsters...

Martha's Vineyard

At FishingtheVineyard.com Capt. Brice Contessa reports:

Fishing the Vineyard Report
7/10/08

Fishing on the island hasn’t changed much in the past week or so. There are still plenty of bass around, although the summer pattern is certainly beginning to emerge. The east side shoal water is still productive, but many of the bass populating these rips in past weeks have been replaced by hungry blues. Early missions and persistence have been the keys to scoring bass on fly and spin down island.

The west end continues to hold a lot of fish in the 28-34 inch range, with most of the usual spots holding. Bigger fish are in the mix up island as they always are. A few in the 20 – 30 pound range on fly have been put on the board by Fishing the Vineyard’s clients in the past week.

On the flats scene north and west end flats are filled in quite nicely with summer resident stripes. Limited visibility and novice/instructional trips kept me off the push pole for much of the week, but I did manage to get a decent busman’s holiday in with Tom Rapone on Tuesday. Despite 25 knot afternoon winds we managed to eek out a couple up in the skinny, all over light bottom which is nice. The biggest over the rail that day was in the mid 30 inch range, weighing in the mid teens; a nice flats fish no doubt. We threw at a few that were considerably bigger but couldn’t entice a bite. Hot fly was the purple lady crab.

Not much news on the tuna front. In the face of $5 fuel it seems that less and less people are taking a poke south to find out what’s happening. Reports continue to filter in from the east, but no one on team FTV has ventured out that way in recent weeks. Prime days are still available, so if you’re headed to the island in the coming weeks/months give us a call! Also, be sure to check out Boyle’s new website, www.boylermaker.com , he did an outstanding job on it!

Capt. W. Brice Contessa
www.fishingthevineyard.com

Capt. Phil Cronin of Capawok Charters reports:

Switching Gears to Maintain Momentum:

July brings along big changes in the Vineyard’s fishing calendar. For one thing there are a lot more people on the island walking the beaches or on the water. There is also a more rapid change in water temperature going from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. Bait also begins to change as squid become more and more scarce, sand eels show larger sizes, juvenile herring starts to pour out of the tributaries, silversides appear in larger numbers, and krill begins its seasonal encampment. All in all the changes that occur in July can mean terrible fishing for some and exciting and productive fishing for others. Basically you just have to switch gears to maintain your fishing momentum and success.

Recently I took a group of anglers on a shore charter which included a tour of fishing spots; some tips on tactics and techniques; and suggestions as to when to fish certain locations given wind, weather and tide as they were going to be fishing hard for the next week. I decided to make our last stop on the tour Lobsterville beach because I had heard that the bass were “pushing herring”. Pushing herring means that large schools of juvenile herring that pour out of menemsha pond this time of year are chased on to the beach by bass. This becomes an excellent opportunity for anglers and we were not disappointed. Just before sunset, a feeding frenzy began as hordes of hungry bass cruised the beach attacking the herring. Everyone in the group caught fish on both fly and spinning gear. The fly of choice was a small olive over white deceiver and the lure of choice was a 6” slugo in olive green. The blitz lasted until dark and was quite and exciting time!

Another big change in July is that the squid hounds vacate the various rips and shoals around the island and start to take up residence nearer shore so they can feed on sand eels, silversides, krill, and crabs. Flats’ fishing for these bass is productive as is plying the rocky points and coves along the Vineyard’s north shoreline. Recently I took out two groups and put them into fish along the North Shore and both did pretty well on smaller bass as the large ones have a tendency to find deeper and cooler water. When fishing the flats we throw either crab or jiggys. When throwing to rocky points we lean towards clousers. With spinning gear, a bone white jumping minnow does the trick along the rocks and a small slugo can be productive on the flats.

Flyfishing the flats in July can be a real challenge and it isn’t for the fint of heart. We see lots of cruising bass but they have become more prone to being spooked and feed more at night than during the day. Despite the challenge, it is possible to score on these fish. A softly and accurately presented crab fly will get a response and the memory of catching one of these beautiful fish will stay with you for a long time. You don’t catch the numbers of fish one might in June, but the ones you do catch are highly cherished.

Later this month the krill will appear in large numbers and the bass will be on these small crustaceans like flys on dung. When bass slurp the krill they become extremely hard to catch but there are proven techniques we use. Next weeks report will cover these techniques for both fly rodders and spin fishermen. A lot of Vineyard anglers curse the krill but I welcome it and look forward to pulling some nice bass out of it.

Tight lines and singing drags,

Captain Phil Cronin
Cell: 617-448-2030

Nantucket

CrossRip Outfitters reports good striper, bluefish and tuna action.  No bonito yet...but their coming!

Sunday, July 06, 2008 
Happy 4th of July. I can’t believe summer is really here. The fishing has been keeping us all busy. Big Stripers, Blues and Tuna, alot of fun. Ladd Stevens landed  the biggest Striper on fly so far with me last week. The fish was 29lbs about 43”s. That was pretty cool. Now everyone is panting for the Bonito. I think it’s a little early but we will be very accepting when it happens.

I also want to mention that we will be having a Salt Water Fly Fishing School July 12 &13th. Dusty Wissmath will be instructing. Dusty has served as lead instructor at the LL Bean Fly Fishing School in Virginia as well as instructing at the Wulff School of Fly Fishing in New York. Dusty also serves on the Pro Staff at Scott Fly Rods. The school is two days but you can sign up for either day or both. Day one will include Equipment Discussion, leader and knot construction, casting and fish fighting techniques. Day two will be advanced casting techniques like the double haul, distance and accuracy.  The days will run 10-4pm. We will be providing equipment, beverages and food. Cost per day is $175. Please call to sign up today.  

 

Chatham, Monomoy and the Outer Beaches

Randy Jones at Yankee Angler reports with one of those bright spots I mentioned in my intro:

Monomoy Island all 3 days:
7/6
Taught my first two guest's how to fly cast over a 2 hour period without a fly on. They learned how to throw the fly 50-60 feet. With the fly on the lesson continued while we fished and they didnt hit any fish. I hit one while demonstrating.
The afternoon brought 2 new and experienced anglers out on the flats with me and it was hammer time. While wade, fly, blind casting they hit numerous fish after fish. All on Sand Lance streamer pattern's. White and Olive clouser, fast retrieve. Blues around also. Now, these guys could cast!

7/7
Spin and fly, wade, father and son team. I fished some really nice spots. Lots of them had moving water over a hole with bait. Nothing all day. Actually, I had one hit and miss and Dad had a short strike. Boy, I hate days like today. I'm guessing some of those 10 pound blues had made a mess of things, as they often do.

7/8
As soon as our ankles touched the flats water I saw a 15 lb. Bass in 10 inch's of water. Wow! Good start! A short while later as we re-approached the flats water in another section while wade sight fishing with a fly rod we saw another. And this was even with a terrible sun and a very small window.
Once the sun did come out we were able to see a good number of big'ns. Normally, in this spot, you will see 100's upon 100's of a fair number of schoolies, but not today (I think, once again, we had some of those 10 lb. Blues, making a reeeel mess of the place.) 99% of the Bass were ALL keeper's! We started patterning the fish and this patterning never stopped all day.
Holy cow! We saw many, cast at many, had many crashing bait on the surface on the flat's while sight fishing with fly rod, had many follows, saw a LOT of flashing fish (when they eat they turn sideways and flash) close up inspections, follows to inspect our morsel for realism in sight as well as smell, refusal's and caught - fooled one very smart Bass of 29 inch's! Super!

You can see by the above report that the fishing on the island is just that, Fishing.
Good Luck everyone,
Randy

North Side

Schoolies in the creeks, otherwise you're gonna want a boat. Wellfleet ought to fit the bill, although so many of the fish are out on Stellwagen...

Even still, we've got a couple of good reports.  ScortonFly had this:

The Barnstable flats were HOT saturday on the incoming tide, tons of small sand eels. small white/olive closers with a touch of rootbeer flash was the key. mixed bag of shorts in with keepas, but the shorts were so aggressive, it was tough to get the fly below them for the bigger fish. try goose hummock for kayak rentals

Fish On reports:

Fished the last three hours of the drop on the flats today. Nothing going on near the cut. I was casting a two inch sand eel patern, which was a good match to the loads of sand eels swiming all around unmolestered.

Saw one mid 20" fish caught by a guy fishing sand eels, but that was it.