Cape Cod and the Islands
Region

September 01, 2006

Buzzards Bay

Falmouth & the Elizabeths

Steve Purcell of Larrys Tackle reports:

At Robinson's recently, my angler had a 10 pound bluefish on fly.  We were just trying to stay out of the wind.  We also saw some hardtails on the west tide in Quick's Hole.

The Cape Cod Canal

Long time RT'er BobG posted this report one the BBS:

Things really should be better than they presently are in the canal. During the day, beaucoup bait, loads of small bass pounding them all day. But after dark, everything seems to vanish.

You'd think the place would be alive at night? The past few tides have only produced short lived, sporadic results. Make about 50 casts, a small pod passes through, multiple hits on the next 4-5 casts, maybe a fish or two. Then....it's over till the next pod passes through in an hour. Far from consistant. But, evening tides are improving...

You can read more from the thread here.

The South Side

Veteran Reel-Timer Dlangan reported on the bbs about his experiences around Dennis last week:

Folks-

Joe and I, our family, and a few other families were on vacation in Dennis last weeek. Here's the highlights of what we saw.

Swan (Dennisport):
Similar to what folks reported on the Bass River. Plenty of schoolies in the dark. Peanuts and mummies were perhaps the prevelent baits. As always, the Swan is tight, technical fishing conditions, so catch rate is a bit low just to position your yak, etc. w/o spooking fish.

We did NOT see any pods of blues busting off the Swan. We did spook a small pod of sizable bass several mornings just off the mouth on the ebb. Never got a bite from them. We went out one night on the ebb and Don scared "something" under his yak that thundered off and gave his yak quite a jolt on the way. Seal, brown shark, bass, sea monster, dunno. But it was exciting!

Bucky of Larrys Tackle reports:

The incoming tide at Middle Gound has been good for bluefish and also some keeper bass, actually both tides have been good for the bass. There's just a lot of bait out at Middle Ground: Sand eels, baby scup, and some baby squid too. One bluefish we caught there puked up a handful of beautiful little 3 inch scup. They must be migrating through or something. And there are lots of 2-inch squid in the sound. White deceivers and white poppers have been doing great for us, just great.

Martha's Vineyard

Bucky of Larrys Tackle reports:

There are a few bonito and albacorearound. Lake Tashmoo was pretty strong today for albies before high tide. The albacore will sometimes actually go inside -- the bonito don't like to because it's too shallow. Casting blind worked today -- almost on a dead drift, and down deep. Chasing em around is a crazy game. I like to just imitate a wounded baitfish bumping along the bottom and it can be pretty effective.

I've also heard good reports from Cedar Tree Neck, Lackey's Bay, and State beach.

There are still a ton of bonito out at the Hooter. Also at Gay Head to Squibnocket there are a ton of bass feeding on krill still.

Nantucket

Lynne Heyer of Cross Rip Outfitters reports:

Thorne,

The fishing the last few days has been a little tough. The Bonito Bar is still holding good numbers of Bones and Blues but one must be patient. With the Easterly wind the fish are a little sporadic. The South Shore was tough yesterday. I had to run all the way to Sconset to find fish right on the beach. Luckily Capt. Bill Toelstedt shared his findings with me. The Rip edges on the East End of the Island are holding Bluefish and a few Bluefin. Some of the Captains are getting lucky and hooking into the small Bluefin. I have not been that lucky but today is another day. I have heard reports of a few Albies showing up between here and the Vineyard but I personally haven’t caught one yet. Maybe today will be that day. Beach fishing has been pretty good with Blues, Bonito and reports of Spanish Mackerel up at Great Point. I also got a report of people catching Bass off the South Shore in the evenings.

Lynne

Capt. Lynne Heyer
Cross Rip Outfitters,Ltd.

Chatham, Monomoy and the Outer Beaches

Terry Nugent of RipTide Charters reports:

While fishing a charter with RTer Jacob K and his family, fellow RTer Parapapam was fishing nearby. Parapapam took the time to get some photo's of Jacob and his Dad doubled up in the middle of a KILLER surface feed of 40-50# tuna east of Chatham. We eventually picked up the third fish for a triple! Not bad with outriggers deployed and all the trolling gear out. Talk about a cluster!!!! We landed all 3 fish then Dennis hooked a forth out of the same school while Jacob and Adam were still trying to land theirs. Four fish from one school!!!! You can see how close they were to the boat, so it made life pretty easy. Just another reason to SHUT OFF YOUR MOTORS!!!! Thanks to Parapapam for taking the time to get the shots and sending them to me!!!! RTers helping RTers

Last weekend, the wind started to blow southeast, and the sky was clear and bright. I wanted to catch a bonito, and headed out from Stage Harbor to the end of Monomoy. On the way, I couldn't help parking at a flat for a while as the tide started to rise on the western edge of the flats, and I was treated to a incredible parade of stripers trying to sneak onto the flats. It was the best flats fishing I have had all Summer by far. School after school of bass, some of them quite large filtered between the bars as the tide rose, and I don't think I moved 100 yards. I managed to feed four bass my Green Diablo crab fly, but only released one of the fish.

After I moved on, I was unable to locate any bonito either on Hankerchief shoal, at the end of Monomoy, at Stone Horse or anywhere else. I did catch some nice five to six poubd bluefish at each spot though.

Probably the sexiest fishing opportunity in the area continue to be the tuna fishing off of Crab Ledge. While I did not make it myself, I saw many boats flying tuna flags, and a few were cleaning fish too.

North Side

Reel-Time moderator Bob Parsons wrote:

I'm back to work so will have to most of my information second hand. There does seem to be some action off Sandy Neck for those that have the beach access permit. So far it has been snapper blues so you can use some of those old small flies and maybe a 20-30# mono leader. Barnstable seems to be producing a lot of schoolies and a few larger fish. As with last week white is the goto color, deceivers or closers what ever you like.