Cape Cod Fishing Report: 5/29/2024
I hate to sound like a broken record, but I guess if you do the same thing for a number of days in the same locations and the fish continue to cooperate, then that’s the way it goes.
This morning was the third and final day of my trips with Tom Bishop and Irwin Chu, who shared the boat on our last two days with their great nephew, Thomas Sheehan, and the bass action just might have been the most consistent we have experienced during these annual gatherings that start just before Memorial Day and conclude the week after.
Each day we fished some combination of Nobska, Woods Hole, and the Vineyard side of Vineyard Sound – as opposed to the waters more towards the Elizabeths – and we never switched over from the Hogy Charter Grade Popper (CGP) as the fish just couldn’t leave them alone. The one change we made today was using the Albie Crack color (basically a white plug) as well as the amber and the fish gave us their opinion: they like them both equally. Whether that was a result of today featuring sunny, brighter, and warmer conditions while our first two days were cool, cloudy, and sometimes downright foggy, I couldn’t say. Today we were fishing from the middle of the dropping tide/west current at Nobska and it was kind of “silly” fishing since there seemed to be an unlimited number of bass that I guessed were just a bit shy of or in the slot limit (28 to less than 31-inches), with the occasional over slot fish.
Over at Eastman’s Sport & Tackle on Main Street in Falmouth, Evan takes advantage of having his boat docked right inside Falmouth Harbor so that he can close up the shop and be fishing one or more of the shoals between Falmouth and the Vineyard in a heartbeat. At the moment, based on his experience and information from his customers, the rips down towards Nobska seem to be holding the most bass on a consistent basis and over the weekend he caught a 40+-inch striper that he estimated was around 20 to 25-pounds on the amber CGP amongst the ten or so quality fish that he and one of his employees caught in less than two hours.
It was a real wake up call today and over the last couple of weeks when I kept hearing from people that they were catching lots of bass on white, pink, or amber soft plastics. I certainly wasn’t surprised that they worked or that some designs have caught on because they cast well. Instead, I found myself recalling when Capt. Mike started Hogy with one lure: the ten-inch Original. This bait rocked my world of fishing, whether it was in the spring targeting squid hounds in the rips of Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds and later on as July and August descended on the Cape and I found myself spending more time in the white water down Monomoy way. I even used them as alternatives to live eels and big wooden plugs down the Elizabeths in the summer and fish crushed them at all levels of the water column, including during the May/June squid run when skipped across the surface.
Despite all the emphasis on topwater activity, I did notice one angler setting his boat well off the rip and then opting to work some kind of jig – based on his rod motion – as the current moved him closer to the rip line and he looked to be hooking up in the deeper water on either side of the shoal. At the ends of each section of shoals, again where the water dropped off, I had seen some impressive marks on my sonar that I would guess were big bass. But unlike a lot of charterboats and some old school recreational anglers who stem the tide and stream wire and jigs – most often parachute style – into the rip, he was employing what looked to be something like the Slow Jigging Approach as described in Capt. Mike’s Inshore Playbook. He hooked up a number of times with what must have been some pretty large fish as it took him a good amount of time to land them.
I did fish Middle Ground for a short while on my first two days with Tom and Irwin, on different stages and directions of the current, and the fish were few and far between. This morning I spoke to a Falmouth resident who keeps his boat docked next to the harbor boat ramp and he told me that MG had some big fish on it, but they weren’t. numerous and very spread out – as well as being pretty uncooperative.
Evan also heard that Woods Hole once again had good topwater action today on the turn to the west/outgoing current and again during the last two hours or so before it slacked. Topwater plugs in white or squid imitation colors such as pink, amber, or orange continued to catch some larger bass today, although the bright, sunny conditions required more attention and a subtler approach than in the foggy, lowlight conditions over the holiday weekend and first part of this week.
Christian Cook from the Sports Port in Hyannis said that over the weekend there was some very good shore based bass fishing inside Hyannis Harbor, including off the Kalmus Beach jetty, but he hadn’t heard anything today about that bite. A number of big fish were caught on frozen, local squid that the shop managed to bring in recently, but white poppers and spooks also caught plenty of fish. In many ways, it seemed like these folks were treated to the kind of action that those of us who fish from boats sometimes take for granted.
Speaking of stinkpotters, Christian has heard that the rips around Popponesset have been the most productive and he added a twist: some folks are fishing the rips casting and bouncing old school bucktail jigs. I have been doing a lot of thinking about subsurface fishing and how it might be time to drop my stubbornness and try something different like vertical jigging with one of the many metal jigs that Hogy offers; I have already used the Sand Eel Jig, but there are so many other options. I know I should put some effort into using Hogy Pro Tail Paddles and Eels, as well as the Hogy Thumper Jigs, to target fish that I mark in the rips, but can’t entice with a surface approach. And I have determined that the Hogy Surface Eraser is going to be a game changer for me since not only will it allow me to work the surface if I so desire, but I can get that erratic action that I fell in love with when Capt. Mike came up with the Hogy 10-inch Original and cast it a mile, which even the best casting soft plastics can’t do.
I have been hoping for some positive reports on bluefish in the usual Nantucket Sound boat and shore spots, but all I could gather was Bob Lewis’s news that they got one big blue at Succonesset today. Otherwise, it was all bass today for Gotta Fly and some darn nice ones at that, some in the same range as the 33-inch fish he caught on an orange Squid Gurgler last weekend. Bob spent a lot of time this winter perfecting his version of the Lou Tabory Snake Fly that would be perfect for fishing the rips and he has already done well with them, especially the white version.
Evan said that beach fishing along the Nantucket Sound shoreline in Falmouth has been OK, with a lot people opting for dunking bait like squid, pogies, or frozen herring around spots such as Menauhant or Trunk River in hopes of catching a legal sized striper, while up in Buzzards Bay, he knows of one shore angler who has caught some big bass in the North Falmouth area using seaworms.
On the other hand, with a slow and steady exodus of big bass out of the backwaters and into the sounds, leaving more schoolies that must be let go, Evan tries to coax anglers into using soft plastics, whether unweighted or weighted such as the Hogy Pro Tail or Slow Tail which can be used to match small bait and allow you to fish drop-offs into deeper, cooler water. Although not as “clean” as soft plastics, the smaller CGP can be C & R rigged with just the one belly hook and a flag on the tail, as is the case with smaller spooks which produce a wake/waggle that is really effective in the early AM or at dusk.
Bob Lewis told me that he fished the Three Bays area and didn’t catch a fish, but he explained that the was at slack high with no current, not optimal conditions especially when combined with 70-degree water, which is a drastic increase from the late April/early May temperatures that make shallower, protected bodies of water the place to be.
Over at Red Top in Buzzards Bay, Connor Swartz added a bit of intrigue into the mix as he told of a young angler who weighed in a 21.5 inch, two pound hickory shad last weekend; all he would let on was that it was caught in the Falmouth area and there were some big bass looking to turn them into dinner.
Finally, black
sea bass fishing definitely seems off, with Evan reporting some folks from Maryland he spoke to that come up each year to fish on one of the Patriot Party Boats told him that the fishing was OK, but nothing like it was five or so years ago.
The same angler who told me about the so-so action on MG this morning added that so far this year he hasn’t been able to catch a single legal sea bass.
I can’t say that the majority of fishermen I have spoken to have had that level of frustration, but most have had to lower their expectations in terms of the minimum size they will consider taking home for dinner. For example, Bob Lewis said that whereas in the past he wouldn’t have to consider taking home any fish under 20-inches, so far this year that number has been around 18-inches.
Up in Buzzards Bay, Connor Swartz explained that the sea bass are still holding in deeper water in the range of 60-feet or so as opposed to moving into shallower areas such as Cleveland Ledge or spots around Wareham such as Bird Island and Dry Ledge as well as Southwest Ledge off of Scraggy Neck. On the other hand, the tautog fishing remains good in some of these same areas and others with hard, rocky bottom.
