Cape Cod Fishing Report: 5/27/2024
Sometimes it’s possible to overthink things when it comes to fishing, so I avoided succumbing to my tendency to try a new place even if I have been doing well in another location for a number of days.
So in this case, I started my trip with Tom Bishop and Irwin Chu, along with their nephew Thomas, in Woods Hole. Once again, we were welcomed by foggy, cool conditions and the fish were not quite as active as yesterday. That said, Irwin and Thomas landed two of the largest bass caught on the Katie G this season and all of the fish we caught in the Hole came on the amber Charter Grade Popper.
There were a couple of other boats milling around in the soup and overall I wouldn’t describe the action as gangbusters, but I would suggest keeping your eyes peeled on flat or calmer water well in front of the different rip lines, which in this case are formed by boulder fields or a rocky reef constricting the water flow and producing the all-important turbulence that fish can hang behind and thereby save their energy for chasing squid or other baitfish or use as an ambush spot where they can lie in wait and simply pick off their meals.
And remember that if you have your timing right and are ready with a cast when fish crash the surface, cast upcurrent of where you saw the fish making a ruckus and let the water flow deliver the plug to the fish. If you put your offering right where you saw the fish, by the time you close the bail or engage the free spool lever/button on a conventional reel, it will already be
One of the best things about the Hogy CGP is that it floats and it will often produce best by just swinging it with the current, with very little – or even with no – forward movement because you only reeled to simply gather up any slack line as the plug works through its swing as opposed to pulling it too rapidly away from productive water.
You can even deadstick a CGP since it floats, stopping your retrieve after a fish blows up on it or simply follows and boils behind it, but doesn’t commit.
We also fished the same series of Vineyard Sound no name rips, with a brief run to Middle Ground as we waited for the tide to turn elsewhere, and we caught a few fish there on Mike’s popper, swinging them the way I used to fish Hogy Originals.
I certainly wouldn’t say the last four days of fishing have been off the charts, but no doubt more squid has arrived and on some tides it has been hard to keep the fish off the hook. In fact, we even caught some bass on an Albie Crack CGP; don’t let that color name confuse you. It’s basically white with a line of yellow along the back and I typically simply call it white because I typically reach for a white plug first if there isn’t a clear, convincing reason to go with something else.
Although casting topwater plugs is fun and very effective, I was reminded more than a couple of times over the last couple of weeks of the popularity of fishing the rips with soft plastics.
There was Gene Bourque switching over to a seven-inch amber Original at MG after the fish kept whacking the CGP around without getting buttoned up. Then a few folks kept telling me about all the fish they have been catching in the rips on pink/bubblegum, white/bone and amber soft plastics.
When Capt. Mike came out with his Hogy Originals, I was on board right away because they caught a lot of fish even in the hands of folks with little or no angling experience. Their built in action doesn’t require a long learning curve before someone can catch fish on them and they retain their seductive action with a simple twitch of the rod tip.