Cape Cod Fishing Report: 6/5/2024
Vineyard + Nantucket Sound – Capt. Mike
There are still plenty of bass on many of the shoals in Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, but there can still be a degree of variability in the size and numbers of fish from day-to-day. A versatile angler is prepared with the proper equipment and understanding of different approaches to deal with a number of factors, including the depth the fish are feeding at; what they are feeding on; and the nature of how they are feeding, i.e., sipping or aggressively taking plugs on the surface.
Given the success that folks who are adept at jigging wire have enjoyed with larger bass, I rung up the good skipper of the Hogy ship and, as usual, Capt. Mike delivered today with his report: Wednesday: “What does the owner of a Fishing blog and tackle company do on his morning off with an old friend? YEP- YOU GOT IT!! We snuck out this AM in the sounds before the noon time blow that was forcasted. We had it pretty good. Rather than push East like we did yesterday, I pushed West looking for schools of bass that should be in all the usual haunts this time of year on Vineyard sound. We found some gulls and bass feeding on the surface and in attempts to target larger stripers, we started with vertical jigging with 6.5oz Sand Eeel jigs around a school of surface feeding striped and pulled up some nice “overs” with fish of all sizes mixed in. This was in deeper water. We also managed to catch a few fluke (shorts) that got me fired up for the season! It’s that time!! We also got some great topwater action too!
Once the tide teetered out, we pushed East, closer to Falmouth and found the squid fed stripers that have been haunting all the rips in both sounds. The bass were finicky “nipping” at the pugs but not smashing them. The tide was almost slack, so I sort of expected that. We put on the new olive/translucent white version of the of the 5.5” Hogy Charter Grade Dogwalker just for the sake of it. We immediately got smashed! and repeated the exercise multiple times before we got hungry for lunch. I did not expect that this would be the top color/lure for us on the rip, not what I would think of as a natural squid color… Must have something to do with the translucency. I guess the saying takes sense here” Sometimes you don’t need to know ‘why’ to know ‘what.'”
This afternoon, I got the chance to catch up with Mike and pick up some details about his fishing today. Apparently, he was working a rip that sets up in Vineyard Sound close to the Elizabeth Islands and there were a lot of bass feeding on pogies – and I don’t know where someone from Massachusetts came up with “bunker” when talking about menhaden! In an attempt to see if there were larger stripers holding under the surface action, Mike and his buddy, John Burns, went to the heavy Hogy Sand Eel Jigs and picked up some bass up to the mid 30-inch range. Mike added that there were some mackerel in the same waters and he suspected that these baitfish were, in turn, feeding on sand eels.
Mike and John eventually moved up to Hedge Fence where the current was pretty slack, but as they drifted over the shoal, they could clearly see bass moving over the bar and into deeper water. None of the boats in the area were having any success with these fish, so given the presence of pogies at their earlier location, Mike went with the new olive over white/pearl Hogy Dog Walker which he had in mind when coming up with this color. Now, he admitted he couldn’t necessarily say if it was the color or just that the fish were reacting to something different from what others were using, but the bass just destroyed it; in fact, Mike was using the same plug in the tried and true amber hue, but they would only follow or nudge it.
Now, I have to admit that at times I will give up on an area because I can be a pretty anti-social angler! In other words, I don’t enjoy fishing in crowds and I elected from Monday through today to make the long run to Wasque and the fishing was great, but I’ll have more on that in today’s Vineyard report.
On the other hand, Evan Eastman at Eastman’s Sport & Tackle on Main Street in Falmouth continued to stay closer to home only a short trip from Falmouth Harbor with good results. On Monday, he and his dad, Chuck, slid a little more east towards L’Hommedieu and had non-stop action on bass up to the high 30-inch range on the amber Hogy Charter Grade Popper. There were squid everywhere and Chuck even managed a big bluefish, which is probably the third or fourth time this week that someone has reported catching a single monster chopper from amongst a pile of stripers.
At one point, they did run over to Middle Ground to see what was happening there, and while they caught a few fish – one of which was the largest of the trip – it was really weedy and they decided to return to their first location as well as try Hedge Fence. The current was just picking up and the fish became far more active as the white water increased and the squid were swept into it in greater numbers.
Yesterday – or was it today? – Evan visited the same stretch of L’Hommedieu and there were still plenty of bass, but they were, on average, smaller than what they picked up on Monday.
