Very early Saturday morning, I hiked from the Herring Cove beach lot in P-town
and started fishing sand eels on the north side of Hatches Harbor. Still pretty
windy from the northwest. Picked up a couple of schoolies to 24 inches in an
hour and a half. Switched to the south side of Hatches with jigs, metals, swimmers
and teaser flies and picked up another couple of small ones. Nothing caught on
occasional casts from Hatches back to the parking lot. The tide was incoming,
but I've had my best success here on the outgoing when sand eels are around.
Later in the day I checked the Canal, and saw a few keepers caught on both the
extreme east and west ends, mostly on whole live or dead herring. Also, from
the Maritime Academy, I spied through binocs a huge flock of terns working over
breaking fish near Hog Island cliffs and Mashnee Neck. Lots of boats around them
and people casting from shore as well. Hog Island is car accessible, but parking
is a problem, especially during the weekends, from now through Labor Day, so
I didn't try to race over there. If it was during the week, I would have done it.
Saturday evening, I tried out Sandwich O.H. creek on the incoming and was
rewarded with loads of sub 15-inch fish hitting everything. Just about any fly
or plastic lure (especially sluggos) worked well. Many, many fish on top in
very skinny fast moving water, but subsurface lures/flies worked better than
poppers. Tried to use bigger jigs to get below the little
guys, but they beat the big fish every time. On one retrieve, I counted 6 or 7
hits on the way in before connecting. Tried out on the beach front next to the
old seawall and caught slightly bigger ones at nearly the same rate as in the river.
The bait, washed up on the rocks, was very small 1 to 4 inch sand eels.
Was planning to try Brewster Flats early the next morning, but lack of sleep
foiled that plan, so I returned to Sandwich Creek around sunup. The small fish
were there again, but in somewhat smaller numbers and further out in the channel. Flies
were the best bet. A few fish on the beach front too. Spoke with someone who said
that it was better there last week, with fewer micro-bass and more 20-24 inch fish,
but the little guys seemed to move in and dominate over the weekend.
-bd