Cape Cod Fishing Report: 5/25/2024
You couldn’t have asked for a better day on the water today, but the fish weren’t as cooperative as I would have liked. I had the chance to fish with Jon Kolb who has been flyrodding Woods Hole and the Elizabeths with me for a good long while. Simply put, we covered a lot of water from the Hole down to Quick’s and saw no signs of life -birds or fish, although we did see a coyote lumbering along the Pasque shoreline – and got no response to the flies we blindcast into the rocks.
We did see a trio of boats plugging inside Robinson’s on our way through to Buzzards Bay and there was still a gathering of four or so boats in the same area as we made our way back up the sound from Quick’s. I have no idea if anything was happening and unlike a couple of other boats that elected to move in to what was clearly a congested area– you know, if you see boats in an area, they must be catching fish – I had no interest in joining the crowd.
My choice was to head across Vineyard Sound to check a series of rips between West Chop and Menemsha in hopes that there wouldn’t be as many boats as Middle Ground would be harboring on Memorial Day weekend. It was a good move as we did find some bass, especially as the tide began to slow around midmorning and they were active both back a ways into the rough water as well as in the flat water out front. In fact, I caught sight of a great visual, with five stripers in a line pursuing a squid from the rip line into the smooth water; they weren’t swimming in a straight line, but sort of in a conga line, almost as if each one was trying to anticipate which direction the squid would go. Overall, it was a good reminder that it’s a tough life being a member of the Loligo Pealeii family, especially right now.
One thing that was obvious from watching the other boats who were casting lures is that they were opting for a slower, subsurface presentation as opposed to winging poppers, spooks, or other topwater plugs around. The high sunshine definitely had an impact as their forays to the surface in pursuit of a meal were really scattered and a real challenge for a flyrodder who had to react instantly when things blew up.
While I was waiting to pull the boat inside Falmouth Harbor, I ran into Capt Mike and his first mate, Max, who were returning from what I believe was the Hogy boat’s first trip of the year and Mike reported that they caught some really nice sea bass in Nantucket Sound, a similar report to the one that my nephew, Frank, gave me about the non-stop action to the east between Wreck and Eldridge Shoals.
BSB are a lot of fun and make a great fish fry, as was the plan for the Peros’ clan and friends tonight, but what really got me jazzed is Frank’s report that there were bluefish finning on the flats/shallows off of Oregon Beach to the entrance channel into Cotuit.
I have to figure out how I can make it out to the East Beach area on the Vineyard Tuesday and cross my fingers some of the big blues that were an early season fixture in these waters last year have returned this season. It might be early, but according to Capt. Mike, one of his Hogy Pro’s reported that he caught some bass at Wasque this week, which is good news for those of us who don’t mind burning some extra gas and thereby do our part to reduce the numbers in shoals closer to the Cape’s southside ports.
One of the challenges when it comes to gathering information is to, as the old saw goes, “consider the source.” Jeff Miller at Canal Bait and Tackle in Sagamore said this morning that the boats he generally trusts in terms of their ability to catch fish consistently were at the west entrance to the Canal trolling deep diving Rapala swimmers and even the tube-and-worm. On the other hand, the handful of boat anglers who fished in Cape Cod Bay, both at Billingsgate and Provincetown specifically, said there were no mackerel and things were dead in terms of bass. I can’t speak to the stripers, but Jeff emphasized that the guy who provides mackerel to the shop said it was loaded up at P’town and he had the fish to prove it.
What I can say with confidence is that Barnstable Harbor has had a good topwater bite in the morning and the fish are feeding heavily on sand eels and the flats fishing from Barnstable down to Brewster/Orleans has been very good, with some really big fish caught during the first light tides through the hours after sun up. This is good for wade anglers who work really hard for their fish and understand the tides and routes that these fish take on and off the flats and up into the marshes and they will catch fish throughout the day as they aren’t as freaked out as when more-and-more boats show up on the flats.
Odds are that the mackerel will move down into the bay as the water warms a little and now that the winds have settled more into a southerly direction, which means the livelining crew will get back into action, but the reality is that right now the warmer waters closer to shore are where folks are reporting the best bite – and that includes sand people who toss plugs at night and through first light from the bayside beaches running south to north from Orleans to Eastham. This is often a topwater bite at dusk or dawn, while sliders – including larger jointed models – are productive, along with classic and modern plastic Finnish style swimmers.
