Cape Cod Fishing Reports

Join us each week as Capt. Dave Peros combines his own experience on the water with that of his network of Cape Cod & Islands charter captains, recreational fishermen and tackle shops to create the region’s most comprehensive weekly fishing report.

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Latest Reports

Cape Cod Fishing Report: June 2, 2024

June 2, 2024
By saltycape

Cape Cod Fishing Report: June 2, 2024

Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds

Even in areas where bass have been active, such as in the wide array of shoals in Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, bluebird conditions that might make for a nice boat ride can leave anglers wringing their hands as they search – often frantically – for a way to coax a bass into committing after it has been tracking and seemingly nosing your offering or tracking it like a submarine.
While I struggled on my trip in the sounds today looking for striped bass around Nobska and along the north shore of the Vineyard, Capt. Ben Sussman of In The Net Sportfishing Cape Cod put his plan into action confidently and skillfully. He started with some sea bass fishing just off of Cotuit and although Ben said they didn’t get any purple or blueheads – or big spawning males – everyone on the boat got their limit, even while picking through plenty of shorts.
On a side note to Capt. Ben’s experience, Capt. Mike went out yesterday afternoon with his first mate, Max, and he continued to prove his prowess at finding bigger sea bass using the new Hogy Groundfish Biki Jig in Nantucket Sound. Whether fished with bait – as shown during a video shot in April as Capt. Ray Jarvis put the Hogy crew on big tautog tipping this new jig with green crabs – or just on its own, this design is already proving its versatility and ability to catch fish.
After Capt. Ben’s charter had fish to eat in the cooler, they went looking for striped bass in the rips. As seems to be the case more often this year than in past seasons, Succonesset Shoal was definitely holding more bass than other shoals that are typically known as striper haunts. Ben is a big fan of supersized, eel style soft plastics such as the Hogy 10-inch Original; he believes by opting for larger baits that he can target bigger fish. He did try some topwater plugs, but overall the fish were a bit gun shy today with the high, bright sunshine and slightly elevated water temperatures. They got a lot of follows and half-hearted swipes at their lures, but it was a challenge getting the fish to commit. Given the conditions, Ben opted for bone/white or bubblegum/pink Hogy’s in the larger size fished on weighted swimbait hook and they caught bass up to 36-inches.
The captain admitted that they have to work hard for their stripers, especially when confronted with at least one boat that charged through the rip as if he were headed for home – and then stopped abruptly and began casting into his own wake close enough to Ben’s boat that he could have cast right into it.
I realize this is going off topic, but it just seems there is more and more boorish, inconsiderate conduct on the water right now, especially with the ever increasing numbers of supersized center consoles tricked out with way too much horsepower. I have no answer in terms of how to handle these muscle heads who have never heard of “being responsible for your own wake.”
In my case, I am going to use the old “too sunny” and “not enough current” combination to explain away my failure to put my guests on fish, but the reality is that in the same conditions towards the end of our trip, we had a big bass come up and inhale an amber Hogy Charter Grade popper right around high noon in Woods Hole. And it wanted that plug “real bad” as it knocked it out of the water four or five times before Stephen Dallalis came tight, an impressive feat since it is far more common to yank a lure away from a fish as opposed to being patient and waiting for the hook to find its mark.
But this was one smart fish as it dove into the boulder field/rip we were fishing and severed the line.
Finally, although I don’t play that tune any longer, Arthur Vose told me that he has had no problem catching larger bass around Nobska and Halfway/L’Hommedieu snapping wire and the pig-and-jig.
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Cape Cod Fishing Report: 6/1/2024

June 1, 2024
By saltycape

Cape Cod Fishing Report: 6/1/2024

Wasque

If there is one thing that is consistent right now it’s the inconsistency of the wind direction that last several days and it looks like it is going to continue into this week. This morning, it was southeast, but it’s now gone around southwest before shifting to west tonight and northwest tomorrow in the AM and finally moving around to east in the afternoon. Later in the week, the forecast has winds out of the south for several days. With conditions changing all the time, it’s important to remember that wind direction and intensity in relation to current direction – in this case coming from opposing directions – can stand a rip line right up and create great fishing or if they are going in the same direction, this can flatten a rip right out.

With lots of high sunshine this weekend and a lack of bait right in the rips from what I gathered from a number of reliable sources, a lot of folks elected to make the run to Wasque where both tides continued to produce a lot of bass. The squid fleet that creates a cluster when they return to the Falmouth Harbor boat ramp around first light appear to be doing pretty well with their nighttime jigging activity and the waters down along East Beach and around the corner to the point are holding some good concentrations of squid and happy bass as well.

This area is a flyrodders delight as there is just so much water to swing a fly, as Bob Lewis and his nephews experienced today. One big advantage of the structure thereabouts is in places the current will move you from one rip line to another, giving the captain a chance to do some fishing as well rather than always running the boat to keep it positioned properly ahead of the rip.

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Cape Cod Fishing Report: 5/30/2024

May 30, 2024
By saltycape

Cape Cod Fishing Report: 5/30/2024

Buzzard’s Bay – Canal – Cape Cod Bay

Just got off the phone with Mark Tenerowicz who was paddling back to the ramp from one of his favorite spots in upper Buzzards Bay around Fairhaven and he said the topwater action was phenomenal. He was sitting in his kayak and looking around at bass blitzes in every direction and today they were far less fussy and willing to take topwater plugs, including the smaller Hogy Charter Grade Popper. He also threw a small heavily weighted needlefish type plug in amber that sounded an awful like the Hogy Surface Eraser, which Capt. Mike introduced last fall and proved to be a gamechanger, with many of the attributes of a soft plastic in terms of movement, but it casts much farther and you can work it at different levels of the water column without having to add weight through some sort of rigging. There was no indication that the fish were feeding on anything different than the microbait – one to two-inch skinny silver baitfish – than they have been, but most likely the overcast, rainy conditions and wind direction made them far less fussy than they were in the calm, high bright sunshine yesterday.

I really want some identification on this small bait, so if anyone gets a good photo of it, I would appreciate it your sending it to me so I can send it off to a fisheries person who can solve the mystery for me.

In another case of fussy fish on microbait, Connor Swartz from Red Top in Buzzards Bay admitted that he and his buddy resorted to using the fly rod after being frustrated by the bass feeding on whatever this stuff is up inside Phinney’s Harbor. They had tried all kinds of plugs and soft plastics, but it took a small tubing/epoxy pattern sold at the shop – and a little work on the casting – to get some of these fish on the line.

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