Friday fished Buzzards Bay early 5am or so. Tide was incoming hard. Birds were working around the Mass Maritime Merchant ship so I mosied on over in the skiff to take a closer look. Fish were working in the surface layer taking bait freely as it was smashed up against the ship's hull by the incomming current. I could see however, even larger fish down about 10-14 feet or so in the fish finder. As I studied this, I could see that at approximately mid ships the current split in opposite directions and moved both fore and aft of the ship after it hit the hull. Also, I could see that a lot of bait was being drawn down under the hull by the strong currentr. I found that by placing the skiff literally up against the hull at the mid-ships point, the skiff would drift fore or aft depending on which side of the mid-ships line i was on. By casting a 250 grain line parallel to the ship, the line would almost immediately be sucked under..waiting about 30 seconds for the line to get down
deep was sufficient to pull 20-26inch fish out on virtually every cast. The smaller schoolies seem to hang around on top taking the free surface bait while the larger fish are quite literally under the hull. So I had no difficulty laying up against the hull (put your bumpers out) and drifting laterally in the current..found the drift towards the bow to be more productive rather than the drift towards the ship's stern. Wait at least 30 seconds for your line to get down under the hull then strip in back in in sharp jerking motions. I had no trouble with hang ups...there's not much on the hull to catch on and the ship sits in 35 feet of water. I'm sure it didn't look pretty to the bait fishermen who were casting to the hull from 40-50 feet away...but I was catching fish and THEY WEREN'T