chatham/monomoy

[tireddave]

fished off chatham and in the Monomoy rips for the last 5 days. Very good fishing. We are catching 40-50 Stripers a day with only a few Blues mixed in. There are fish on the flats that can be caught throughout the day on 5 inch jerkbaits and weightless 6 inch Netters Lances. These fish are in the 27-33 inch range. There is a pretty good pile of fish that are feeding on sandeels off of South Beach in Chatham. These fish are easily located by following the gulls and terns. They are in 35-40 feet of water and are caught exclusively on 6 inch headed Lances and one oz. Netters Shads. Snap-jigging off of the bottom produces the most fish, but with light tackle, casting at breaking fish that are chasing sand eels and sand lance is the most exciting way of taking these Bass. We are also catching a lot of fish in the rips. There are more bass in the rips than I can ever remember. Most are 30-35 inches and are caught drifting eels or clams in the rips. Guys trolling red tubes and umbrella rigs are also scoring. Many of these fish are in the 20-25 lb. range, with the biggest going 28 lbs. This one was caught with light tackle by snapping a 6 inch coral-blue Lance (1/2 oz. Head) through a shallow rip. There are some squid in the rips, but mostly the forage is sandeels and they are everywhere. Those interested in the Netters line of softplastics, go to their web site at www.nettersinc.com to check them out.

[SAGE9]

Dave,

Massively beautiful report! I'll be down there this weekend and hope that the conditions remain. I checked out the rips last saturday and they were dead - I guess they are finally here! Can't wait to cast to those lunker heads as they mill around in the rips.

Question: The birds were working the deeper water at what time of day / tide? Or was it relatively constant?

Thanks.

[tireddave]

Tide didn't matter, morning and evening seem best, but fish are chewing all day long. Best conditions are when the wind is down and the ocean is flat. This helps locate the pods of fish better and they tend to drive up the bait more during these conditions. The 35-50 foot breakline (roughly 2 miles from beachfront) is where the birds are working.