Cape Cod Weekly Fishing Report – August 2

Nantucket Sound

Bonito schools have been active but smaller and less consistent in Nantucket Sound. Anglers have found productive schools off Popponesset and around Wasque, with frequent double and triple hookups reported. The bonito fishing was described as excellent, especially in areas with strong currents and rip lines. There are reports of significant surface activity, with anglers using spinning tackle experiencing consistent action. The presence of small baitfish like peanut bunker, sand eels, and silversides has contributed to the vibrant bonito scene. Bluefish have also been present, especially in deeper waters.

Watch: Inshore Fishing GRAND SLAM | Cape Cod Fall Run

Buzzards Bay

In Buzzards Bay, anglers have had success with bonito using the Pink Hogy Surface Eraser. Stripers have been targeted with deep presentations such as jigging or using the tube-and-worm method. Topwater action has been effective early in the morning or during night tides. Larger stripers are being caught by livelining pogy schools, swimming eels in deeper waters, and trolling deep swimmers. There is an abundance of small bait in the bay, though no bonito or albies have been reported yet.

The Canal

The Canal has seen good bass activity, with a strong topwater bite reported. Effective lures include red head/white body and squid-looking topwater plugs, as well as white bucktails for jig fishermen. The tanker cut and power lines have been hotspots, with fish feeding on pogies and responding well to white swimmers and Hogy Epoxy Jigs.

Cape Cod Bay

Cape Cod Bay is a top destination for bass, with big bluefish reported around Sandy Neck. Pogies are abundant off Manomet, attracting boats for livelining action. Trolling deep diving swimmers on leadcore lines has been producing quality bass. The bay also offers opportunities for shore anglers fishing with Danny plugs at night and tandem rigged soft plastics.

Watch: How-To: Open Water Trolling for Striped Bass | Deep Diving Plugs 

Woods Hole and the Elizabeths

Woods Hole and the Elizabeth Islands have offered excellent fishing, particularly for stripers. The strong currents in the area have made the Hogy Charter Grade Popper effective for catching stripers. Anglers have experienced aggressive reactions from fish when using floating poppers in areas with small bait like baby squid. Larger stripers have been reported, with some well over 40 inches. Albies have made an early appearance around Cuttyhunk. The rip lines and deeper waters around the Elizabeths are known for producing quality fluke and sea bass. Bluefish have also been caught, particularly in deeper waters where vertical jigging is effective.

Vineyard and Vineyard Sound

The Vineyard and the north shore of Vineyard Sound are ideal for black sea bass, with deeper waters yielding larger catches. Bonito action is strong, particularly at Wasque and from Squibnocket to Gay Head. Tuna seekers have encountered active bonito on their return trips, and reports confirm the presence of stripers and bluefish around the island. Squibnocket has also been reported as a hot spot for large bluefish. Shore anglers targeting bass at night have found success with bucktail jigs and sand eel imitating casting jig

s.

Watch: How To: Combo Trip | Jig Seabass | Topwater Stripers

Nantucket

Nantucket has seen impressive bonito fishing, with active feeding around Great Point, the southeast corner, and the Bonito Bar. Anglers have been catching a mix of bonito and bluefish, with some larger specimens being reported. Shore anglers have had success with long-cast swimming plugs, especially at Great Point. The bluefish action has been variable, with larger fish around Great Point and Coatue. Stripers are being caught at night on the south side beaches using subsurface presentations like bucktail jigs and soft plastics​.

Monomoy and the Outer Cape

Monomoy and the Outer Cape have seen an influx of larger stripers, with fish reaching over 40 inches in the rips. Anglers have been using subsurface presentations such as narrow-bodied swimmers and jig head/soft plastic combinations. The topwater bite has been strong, with white and pink being effective colors. The backside beaches from Nauset to Provincetown are fishing well, especially with needlefish, sand eel imitation soft plastics, and larger tandem-rigged soft baits. Live eels are a popular choice for night fishing. The area has also seen schools of pogies, which have attracted stripers and seals alike, particularly along the shoreline from Monomoy to Nauset​.

Watch: 

Additional Notes

• Weather Impact: Southwest winds have been strong, affecting fishing conditions, but rougher waters often lead to better bonito bites.
• Bait Presence: Peanut bunker and other small baitfish are prevalent, contributing to the active fishing for bonito and other species.
• Tackle Tips: The Hogy Epoxy Jig in Silverside and Pink Hogy Surface Eraser have been particularly effective for bonito.
• Fishing Techniques: Topwater action has been successful during early mornings and night tides, especially for stripers.
• Crowding Issues: Popular spots, especially around Manomet and in the Canal, have seen significant boat and angler traffic.
• Safety Reminder: With increased boat traffic and varying weather conditions, safety on the water should remain a priority.

Hogy Lure Co. Product Recommendations

• Hogy Epoxy Jig – Available in multiple sizes and colors like Silverside and Pink, this jig is perfect for surface blitzes and is highly effective for targeting bonito and other pelagic species in Nantucket Sound and Vineyard Sound.
• Hogy Charter Grade Popper – With its robust design, this popper is great for topwater action, especially in Woods Hole and the Elizabeths, where strong currents create ideal conditions for stripers.
• Hogy Protail Paddle – A versatile softbait ideal for targeting stripers and bluefish in Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay, particularly when used with deep presentations like jigging or trolling.
• Hogy Sand Eel Jig – Designed to mimic one of the ocean’s most prolific baitfish, this jig is suitable for vertical jigging in the deeper waters of Vineyard Sound and Nantucket, where sand eels are prevalent.
• Hogy Perfect Needlefish – An effective plug for Monomoy and the Outer Cape, especially when targeting stripers at night on the backside beaches with subsurface presentations.
• Hogy Squinnow Jig – Best for catching black sea bass and fluke in the deeper waters between the Elizabeths and the Vineyard, the Squinnow Jig excels in strong currents and deep-water environments.

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Friday 

 

Line of the week, at least for me, came courtesy of one Bob Lewis: “Seems like the bonito fishing is back to being bonito fishing.”

Bob started this morning at Horseshoe Shoal where he found lots of happy bonito on a quick trip last weekend; it was so good that he caught three on his favorite bone fly so far this season, a white Schminnow, and called it a morning.

Today, he found no life, no fish so he made the mistake of listening to me and went to Wasque, where the fog just caught thicker and thicker, which is never good if you are looking for surface feeding fish. He did find birds working in tight to the point, but they turned out to be another one of those sea bass blitzes which this area has become known for.

With the bonito schools in NANTUCKET SOUND smaller and less inclined to keep churning away like they had been, Bob did find a happy school off Popponesset and caught one, after which it was off to work.

Paul Caruso had an epic two days when the wind was smoking on Tuesday and Wednesday, and while he did OK yesterday between Osterville and Popponesset, he said it wasn’t as good.

I fished yesterday with Capt. Warren Marshall, starting off drifting between Great Pond and Green Pond with terns picking bait, but no shots to speak of. We eventually ended up east of Waquoit and had what I would say were four or five good shots with the fly, hooking up once before a loop knot turned into an overhand knot and a pigtail.

So, a friendly suggestion: remember that funny fish are an entirely different animal when it’s rough and snotty or when you can mimic stormy weather by fishing for them in rip that is really going.

BUZZARDS BAY

I’m sure there are plenty of folks who have been wondering where the bonito have been in the bay after hearing all about the southside. Well, Nick Santolucito from M & D Outfitters in Wareham passed on some very good news, plus a photo to seal the deal: “Yesterday AM and this AM, in upper Buzzards Bay. Pink Hogy Surface Eraser crushing it.” Thanks to one of Nick’s customers, Steve, for providing the report and the picture.

If your interests run more towards stripers, taken Nick’s advice and think deep presentations, including jigging – either wire line or vertical – as well as the tube-and-worm. If you are only interested in casting, then be around the west entrance well before first light or hit the water at dusk and work the night tides.

THE CANAL

Good news on the Big Ditch courtesy of Jeff Miller at Canal Bait and Tackle in Sagamore: “A lot of bass this morning down the Canal. Good topwater bite. Red head/white body and SQUID  looking topwater plugs did great. White bucktails produced for the jig fishermen.”

Using my awesome powers of deduction, I surmise that the fish were feeding on squid, as opposed to the mackerel that often produce surface action in the land cut or pogies that call for jointed glidebaits.

Tomorrow slack is at 3:30 AM at the west end, so if you believe in the breaking tides – east turn before first light – then you will know where to be. Then again, action around Gray Gables to the Bourne Bridge is often just the opening act, followed by fish putting on a show from mid-Canal to the east end.

CAPE COD BAY

You could make an argument for either the bay or Monomoy being the best bet for bass right now, but when add in Jeff Miller’s news about big bluefish around Sandy Neck, well, then that might tip the scales.

Plenty of pogies up off Manomet means plenty of boats looking to get in on the livelining action, but boats trolliing deep diving swimmers on the edges of the fleet have also been catching some quality bass. It’s common to use leadcore line with these type of lures, but if you already have trolling outfits filled with braided line, they will work fine. If, however, you need to get down deeper, check out Capt. Mike’s video where he is trolling the tube-and-worm off Scorton Ledge and opts to use Hogy’s Trolling Weights to get that added depth that can get your lure down to where the fish are holding.

Barnstable Harbor is still a good bet for very early morning schoolie action, with jigging nylon hair or bucktail jigs on wire in the deeper water of the channel a traditional way of picking up larger bass in the heat of the summer.

VINEYARD SOUND

If black sea bass for the table are your target, then a run to deeper water between the Elizabeths and the north shore of the Vineyard is what will typically pay off this time of year. Leave the light sinkers and jigs at home; Capt. Mike has emphasized to me that the Hogy Squinnow Jig in six to eight ounces is what he turns to in some of his favorite spots where the water can run up to 90+ feet; as part of his NO BAIT APPROACH, he attaches the Squinnow to a Jig-Biki Crystal Teaser rig.

This same rig will also produce larger fluke, which really like lots of current, meaning you have to get down to where they are hanging. Summer flounder are aggressive fish, but the larger ones are like larger stripers: they want dinner to pass close by if they’re going to expend the energy to leave their bottom lair.

THE VINEYARD

I had planned on circumnavigating the Vineyard today with Davis Yetman and his daughter Hailey, who was on the island spending some time with her friends before starting her second year of medical school.

Davis and I had a nice smooth ride over to Edgartown to pick Hailey up and I had planned on starting our fishing adventure at Wasque. On the way over, however, there were lots of terns and plenty of boats between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown – including in tight along State Beach – all good signs that bonito were around.

Sure enough, when we left Edgartown, I opted for my usual approach when fishing funny fish: start upcurrent from likely looking water – including areas where the terns were acting “birdy” – rather than racing to and fro.

Sure enough, we got some excellent shots at big feeds, with Hailey on the board first with her first bonito before she and her dad doubled up. All fish were caught on a 5/8th ounce Hogy Epoxy Jig in Silverside, although when bleeding, gutting, and icing the fish, they all had two to three inch peanut bunker in their stomachs.

I imagine that Hailey received a hero’s welcome for providing sashimi for dinner.

One word of advice: I typically don’t fish waters leading into a harbor or bay since boat traffic heading in and out can be ridiculous. And it certainly was around Edgartown, especially in the afternoon when we had a few decent feeds to cast at, but the boat wake was off the charts, most often caused by huge center consoles that were clearly looking to “fish” for other boats rather than seeking their own action.

NANTUCKET

The bonito bite on the island remains very good, confirmed Tim Coggins at Nantucket Tackle Center; boat anglers are doing well at the appropriately named Bonito Bar as well as the Great Point area, which is where shore anglers are getting their shots as they work the inside area.

Bluefishing is improving, with more of them around the east side of the island, including Great Point, where they can be mixed in with bonito, as well as down off Sankaty and Old Man Shoal.

Stripers are being caught in the rips to the east and west side of the island, with the former probably most consistent due to the colder water and variety of bait, including squid and sand eels. Topwater plugs in amber, pink, and white are effective in a rip area where the bass are feeding on squid, with a subsurface approach such as a weighted soft plastic in the same color or even a bucktail jig can be effective.

Early mornings and dusk have seen some topwater bluefish action for shore folks, with a nighttime approach most effective for bass along the southside, whether you opt for live eels or darker colored, larger tandem rigged soft plastics. If you target white water, bucktails with a soft plastic teaser or even pork rind will put you in the zone where the fish are feeding.

Thursday

 

When I pulled into the Falmouth Harbor boat ramp parking lot this morning at 5 AM, it was completely empty, which I took as a pretty good sign that wiser people than I had read the forecast and opted to either spend the day on land or wait things out and see if the wind would lay down.

Unfortunately, the southwest kicked up even stronger as the day went along and probably gave folks pause if they had planned to test things this afternoon, which is really too bad because I heard from a number of people that the bonito fishing has been excellent along the southside and funny fish are known to bite even better when it is rough.

Unlike Paul Caruso, who was willing to endure some pounding yesterday, my friend, Capt. Warren Marshall, and I had planned to toss flies at some bones. Given the wind which not only would make casting difficult, but also present the challenge of staying upright as my boat rocked to and fro, when Warren showed up, I apologized and said it was in our best interests – and our backs and knees as well – to wait for another day.

So while he went home and went back to bed, I dropped the boat off in the yard as quietly as possible so Kate and the dogs wouldn’t wake up – it was still before 6 AM – and elected to drive up to the Canal and do some walking and sightseeing – in other words, look for fish.

When I got to Bell Road, the east current was starting to slack, with only one angler fishing bait there and a few others just starting to set up their bait buckets and rigs as well down around the railroad bridge.

I didn’t spend a great deal of time at the west end since I hoped that the dying current around the tanker cut, the bulkhead, and the Cape side jetty would combine with any bait in the area and produce some happy fish on top.

Sure enough, when I parked east of the Sandwich Marina and with the help of my binoculars, I spied what I was hoping for: a good number of gulls working over breaking fish, so I decided to take a walk out to the jetty to get a better look.

There wasn’t a single person on the jetty and I most likely could have reached some of these bass with a fly rod, but I had no regrets that I wasn’t prepared for any fishing.

In fact, I was just plain happy to remember days when I fished with my feet in the sand or on the rocks as opposed to the deck of a boat.

Were those days better? That’s a tough question, but nostalgia can complicate that kind of assessment, so I simply smiled and appreciated what my angling world was back then and what my days on the water are like now.

Thoreau wrote, “Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after” and that thought stayed with me all day. Sure, I didn’t catch any fish or even launch my boat, but a simple memory and a familiar place made me happier than any fish ever could.

CANAL

Nick Santolucito from M & D Outfitters had plenty of news and helpful hints, starting with the Big Ditch: “There’s been some reliable action around the west end early AM. It’s a typical small window of topwater activity” with the evening tides worth fishing since they can produce a repeat of a good morning bite.

One of the toughest aspects of fishing a body of water like the Big Ditch is developing an understanding of its myriad elements, but as with pretty much all fishing, it really helps to start with the basics. For example, Connor Swartz at Red Top in Buzzards Bay offered up a concrete starting point for fishing the Canal: “If the current is running east, you want to end up at the east end, and if it’s running west, well then you want to be west.”

Jeff Miller at Canal Bait and Tackle in Sagamore chalked up the lack of anglers fishing the Canal to a report of big bass being caught from the shore up in the Plymouth area. Just as the bite up that way has been driven by schools of pogies, Jeff said there have been some smaller groups of menhaden working in and out of the east end. Perhaps it’s the influence of the stronger currents in the Canal, but while metal lip swimmers have been catching plenty of big fish up north, in the Ditch jointed glide baits that don’t rely on a swimming lip are proving to be better options.

There are also more juvenile herring flushing out of the Canal run right now, especially after one of the heavy rainstorms we have had recently. When the bass are feeding on these fry, Jeff recommends using Hogy Epoxy Jigs, with green or blue the colors that

BUZZARDS BAY

Boat anglers up around the west entrance to the Canal “are seeing some decent fish mixed in coming off the edge of the channel, Nick explained. When the sun comes up, the fish go down. When this happens, especially in places where the water is quick, casting tins or metal jigs is oftentimes the best move, where others have been opting for soft plastics with weighted hooks or even insert weights” to get deeper in the water column.

Nick also reported that there have been no bonito or albies in the bay yet, which is strange since they are in good numbers in all of their other usual haunts, but “there is certainly plenty of small bait in upper BBay to keep them entertained once they do.”

It clearly makes sense that fishermen are drawn to big fish, but I was psyched by Connor’s news of running into some very active schools of small stripers last weekend around the edges of the Canal. As he made sure to point out, “These were all schoolies, fish from 16 to 20 inches and they hit the (Hogy) Epoxy Jigs hard.

Nick did add that some bigger fish are being caught in a number of ways: “Liveline the pogy schools north, or swim eels down to deeper water. Chunk some macks” are what Nick suggests if you prefer to fish bait, while if you prefer to fish lures, “troll a deep swimmer, or even try wire or leadcore with a tube and worm or a parachute.”

This advice is right on the money since as we make our way into August, it pays to roll the dice and be “adventurous” as Capt. Mike calls it. There are certainly proven methods that an angler can become comfortable with, but sometimes it’s possible to overlook other methods even as the familiar isn’t paying off.

NANTUCKET AND VINEYARD SOUNDS

The long terms forecast into next week suggests that we are in for an unsettled stretch of weather, so it is important to take advantage of any opportunity to get out on the water – safely, of course.

For example, Evan Eastman from Eastman’s Sport & Tackle on Main Street in Falmouth forwarded me an email from a customer who dealt with the elements on Tuesday, just as Paul Caruso did, and he had an equally good trip: ““Catch as many as you want bonito this morning between Green Pond and Great Pond. Went over to middle Ground to get out of the wind. Caught lots of fluke, nothing of size. Then went to Woods Hole and caught under slot size stripers at Pine Island. For being a windy day, we caught a lot of fish in about five hours time.

The Bonito were very cooperative. We double and tripled up a few times. The peanut bunker have arrived big time.”

 

Wednesday

 

The other day I was fishing with Capt. Mike’s sister, Deb, and her husband, George O’Toole, and their two teenage sons, Brennan and Ian. There is nothing I like more than fishing with this crew because not only are they fun to fish with, but Deb is very adept at asking challenging, thought provoking questions.

Well, last Saturday she asked me what I thought about AI, which I don’t all that much about or really care to. In fact, you could say I am an anti-techi for the most part, even going so far as to still be using a flip phone despite numerous friends and relatives saying I need to get with it.

The one device, however, that I could not do without is my laptop, which happens to be a MacBook Pro. It’s filled with lots of cool apps and programs that make the jobs that a lot people do much easier, and even in someone’s everyday life, they can open up creative avenues that only decades ago were unimaginable.

Despite my father being an artist, I have no skills in this field or craft whatsoever, so the Apple tools that can assist in this venue are lost on me, as are pretty much everything except those that have to do with words.

I especially like being able to look up a phrase I faintly remember but need refreshing on or even different versions of the same saying as it has evolved over the years in different cultures and languages.

In this case, I was grasping at straws and wracking my brain to come up with a line that I know is somewhere in the Bible, but I couldn’t come up with it. So I put together a query and up came some really cool stuff, including the line from Corinthians: “And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.”

For me, the syntax and structure used in the King James Bible can lead to more questions than it answers and in all honesty that might be the point, to force me to ponder the meaning.

Thankfully, however, I can grab a phrase like the one above and ask my laptop to find translations into the kind of English I am familiar with. I was going to say “contemporary English,” but frankly I am probably more unfamiliar with modern phraseology, idiom, and vocabulary than I am with what was in vogue back in the 1600’s.

So up came: “Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much,” which was perfect for what I was thinking about today on the subject of bonito.

In so many ways, fishing has become more of an ego driven activity than ever before, but I have always relied on listening to and talking with other anglers to fill in the capacious gaps in my angling knowledge.

For example, so much of what I have read and experienced about bonito is that they are a tougher fish to target and catch than false albacore – or at least as tough.

But I was talking with Paul Caruso this morning and I was surprised to hear him say that bonito are no way as difficult as albies. As our mutual friend Bob Lewis says, “Paul is the best fisherman I know” and there’s nobody whose opinions I respect more than Bob’s – plus I figure anyone who has commercially fished for a living, worked for the Division of Marine Fisheries as a fisheries biologist, and embodies the concept of “living off the sea” to the max is someone I need to listen to.

We didn’t have a long time to talk and get into nuance, but what I observed on Sunday was a stark contrast to any previous days of bonito fishing in my life. It could have been they were on the small side and it most likely a product of the way they were aggressively feeding and just the share size of the schools that belied what I always considered their finicky nature. There is so much small bait around, including peanut bunker that I saw in a photograph of a bone that had disgorged them on the deck of a boat.

Then, this afternoon I added to Paul’s assessment the opinion of one Connor Swartz from Red Top in Buzzards Bay, who is in his early 20’s but has already made time spent on the water a priority in his life, just as Capt. Caruso did.

Connor really enjoys fishing for tuna, but he was psyched to hear about all of the bonito in the sounds and around the Vineyard and Nantucket and was already planning a trip to check the action out.

And, sure enough, he had a similar opinion on the wily bonito: “No, I’ve never really found them to be overly picky. If you find bonito actively feeding, if you put a (Hogy) silver Epoxy Jig into them, you’re going to hook up.”

In the end, all I know is I am going to take advantage of what so far has been a bone-nanza and spend as much time as I can putting as many casts as I can into where they are churning up the water as well as blindcasting where I think they are headed next.

NANTUCKET AND VINEYARD SOUNDS

It was too rough for me this morning, but Paul Caruso “Finally got a day to chase bonito. Really nasty seas with all the wind and tide but the fish always seem to be on the feed when I can barely stand up and it’s hard to run and gun faster than 10 mph! After over a dozen fish boated I reluctantly called it a morning. Home to lick my wounds!” I suspect given the conditions that Paul didn’t want to travel too far from where he launched in Cotuit.

Meanwhile, Evan Eastman at Eastman’s Sport & Tackle on Main Street in Falmouth heard that there was some very good action between Great Pond and Green Pond this morning, while one of his employees, Howie Baker, spoke to folks who have been consistently finding lots of bones around Succonesset Shoal and Popponesset.

Folks coming back in from the waters south of the Vineyard after looking for tuna have been greeted by lots of happy bonito around Wasque as well as from Squibnocket to Gay Head, based on what route they took back to their home port, as was the case for the boat that Howie was on for first day of a two day search for tuna over the weekend. I know, I know, a bonito can’t ever replicate the thrill of catching a tuna, but at least you’ll have some sashimi for dinner.

Capt. Ben Sussman of In The Net Charters on Sunday had a very successful bonito/black sea bass trip, but in a reversal of fortune that really captures the zaniness of this whole season in many ways, they had no problem finding and catching bones, but sizeable BSB’s were another story. Eventually, they found a spot with slightly deeper water that held some legal fish and there are a number of deeper edges off the shoals to the east and southeast of the Vineyard where good numbers of quality fluke can be caught.

Of course, even though it’s common at this point in the season for anglers looking for bigger sea bass or fluke  to head for deeper water down around Noman’s, but Evan pointed out that on Sunday his folks stayed closer to home, specifically at the deep end of Middle Ground, and his mom Debbie caught a mid-20-inch fluke and a hefty, knothead BSB.

Getting back to funny fish, the one frustrating part of dealing with them is that on any given day you will hear that they only wanted this color or that one, which come to think of it is true in all kinds of fishing. But I can’t help thinking that the cast, retrieve speed, profile or size of your lure and whether your offering – no matter what color it is – was seen by any fish are just as important as having the right hue.

But that doesn’t mean I will carry way too many colors, although I will share a trade secret from Capt. Mike himself: his favorite color is Shrimp.

INSHORE OFFSHORE

I really am glad that I am not a tuna nut since running for hours on a boat isn’t my idea of a good day on the water, just behind pleasure or leisure boating. I do like the idea of seeing whales, dolphins, and all of the other sea life – including baitfish – that people who pursue pelagic species often talk about.

Crowding is a pretty common issue on the inshore scene, whether it’s up off Manomet where schools of pogies are making for a solid striper bite or any number of rips where bass are blowing squid out of the water, but I find it hard to imagine that with all of that blue water where the tuna, marlin, mahi, and sharks roam that a fleet of boats would become an issue.

But, according to Capt. Ben Sussman, that’s the reality this season as the only area where there has been a steady bluefin bite for boats that aren’t built for the run to the canyons is south of Coxe’s. As he explained, “I would rather not fish in a crowd of 100’s of boats, but when you want to catch for customers, that’s the choice you have to make sometimes.” Fortunately, his trip on Saturday was successful as they caught four bluefin, mainly vertical jigging olive Hogy Harness Jigs, although they did catch one fish on the troll. Ben told me they were using six ounce Harness Jigs, but given that they were marking the tuna right on the bottom feeding on huge numbers of sand eels, he feels that had they had heavier ones on board, they probably would have caught more fish.

Again, similar to inshore spots like the Canal where someone who elects to try and jig when everyone else is casting topwater just might end up in the water, there can be some heated disagreements when everyone is vertical jigging and a few boats opt for trolling through the fleet. Ben said that was the case on his trip, but even more bizarre was that on occasion as a boat dragging bars would pass within 30 feet or so of a boat that was probing the depths, a tuna would come up and hit the trolled item.

After an empty trip to area of the Dump on Saturday, the captain and crew of the boat that Howie was on made their way to the area where Ben had been the day before, again for the simple reason that is where people have been finding tuna. They, too, caught fish jigging, with the key – as I mentioned above – being right on the bottom; with the depth and strength of current, they used jigs between eight and 12 ounces according to the stage of the tide.

They also heard that towards slack water green bars had been working, but only a few boats had success with them.

Overall, the tuna were on the small side, up to 50 pounds or so, but they were eager and willing to eat, which makes any tuna trip successful, whether you’re fishing the waters south of the Vineyard, which range inside the Shipping Lanes over to spots closer to Block Island and Montauk, or the well-known waters east of Chatham – what I call the Inshore Offshore – or the true bluewater of the canyons.

 

Tuesday

 

Call me provincial, call me a homebody, or even call me stuck in the sand, but I can’t imagine living any place but the Cape.

In fact, when I was teaching in Virginia and over time became aware that I was growing comfortable enough there that I might put down permanent roots – I had even bought a house – I woke up one day and realized that the Cape was calling me home.

Now, there were other factors in my decision to leave a school where my teaching and coaching were respected and appreciated. Well, to be honest, the coaching part had some rough edges to it, but I digress.

So it shouldn’t be surprised that when I come upon a book that involves the Cape, I will just have to buy it. Plenty of these volumes involve – surprise, surprise! – fishing around these parts, but I love to delve into Cape history, geography, sociology, genealogy, and even the psychology of the residents who moved to and settled on what is basically a big sand spit.

Occasionally, I gravitate to reading and studying about another location. Two winters ago it was the Chesapeake Bay, specifically the numerous islands and the cultures and working lives of the people thereabouts, especially Smith and Tangier Islands. Last winter, I grabbed a whole host of tomes about the Hudson River – and, yes, if you see a connection since these two areas are where the vast majority of striped bass are spawned, then I won’t argue the point.

But I always return to reading what I can find about the Cape, just as I did in 1985 when I was lured back by the siren’s song that reminded me that the best parts of my youth were spent here.

Of course, if I give off the impression of being studious and intensely dedicated to reading “serious” written works, I am only too happy at times to grab a well-written inquiry into and re-telling of an event that put this area square into the consciousness of not only folks who live here, but the larger world as well.

A good writer, however, can not only me in with the details of the event and draw a thorough and entertaining picture of the time, community, and people involved, but they go far beyond the juicy, titillating shlock that is the province of someone who puts words down on paper for the sole purpose of entertaining and far too often shocking the reader.

So, I recently grabbed a copy of Maria Flook’s book, Invisible Eden, about the Christa Worthington murder back in 2002. I’ll leave it up to you to look up this event and its details, but in her search into and explanation of the life of the victim, I became interested in a theme she discusses and ponders and was shocked to discover a parallel to something I have been thinking about the current shape of the recreational fishing world.

In yesterday’s episode of the podcast that Capt. Mike has generously included me in so far, we talked about his ideas about the difference between adventurous fishing and technical angling, just as Ms. Flook addresses the duality of skilled, precise wordsmithing and writing that has soul or heart. I’m not saying that these approaches are mutually exclusive; in fact, it’s when they come together and build on each other’s strengths that writing – and fishing – perhaps reach their pinnacle of accomplishment.

For me, however, whether it’s in writing about fishing or the practice of angling itself, I have always found greater joy in that adventurous, unfettered passion for the act itself.

To wit: I am an editor’s worst nightmare. I sit down and scribble away, occasionally making a spelling or punctuation correction and even recognizing that I have gone off the rails and need to rein myself in. On at least one occasion, someone has commented on Salty Cape about my inattention to grammar or clarity, something that I know I am guilty of – and glad of it. Well, at least most of the time.

I’m certain that I might be horrified to re-read what I have written, but the simple truth is once it’s done, I don’t look it over. Instead, I send it to that great big thing called the Internet and let all of you be the judges. No doubt, this “bad” habit arises from a level of laziness on my part, but in writing about fishing, I take the same approach that I do when fishing for myself: it has to be spontaneous. 

Sure, I’ll know – usually – what the tide is and what approaches and techniques I will use beforehand, but my best trips when I am the angler are grounded in adventure and just being on the water.

I do understand the need if you’re running to the canyons to have studied satellite water temperature charts and gathered up as much “data” as you can, along with adding the human element by talking with other captains whom you are familiar with and are willing to share their recent experiences around the waters where you are headed. On a pragmatic level, if you’re going to burn all that fuel and put in that much time, anything you can do to take some of the inherent uncertainty in fishing out of the equation is a good thing.

Even inshore fishermen will surely benefit from a plan and some forethought, whether it is before walking the sand or settling onto your favorite rocky perch or casting off the docklines.

But it’s those times when you hit your spot and discover that what you expected isn’t what you find, yet you put your experiences and you work it out – or even if you don’t, you learned something.

Fishing is, at its best, a matter of getting the technical aspects – from rods, reels, lines, and lures or bait to the waders and footwear if you’re a shorebound angler to the equipment you outfitted your boat with – right and combining those elements with the intuitive and creative willingness to work outside the box. When you try something different on the water, you open yourself up to the possibility of not catching, which in some folks eyes constitutes failure, but the day might be a tremendous success because of what you put into it.

It’s the same in writing; you might get the commas, conjunctions, and sentence structure or even the choice of words right, taking care of the mechanical framework that gets you headed in the right direction, but without the human element, that heart and creative force, then the end result just might fall short of all it could be.

THE CANAL

Jeff Miller at Canal Bait and Tackle in Sagamore said that the east end is still where the most consistent action is, but most of the bass being caught are on the smaller size. Glide baits – both solid and jointed – have been effective in the hours up to sunrise, at which point the action definitely slows. White has been the hot color when the fish are feeding on bait such as pogies, but there are good numbers of baby herring dropping out in the vicinity of the herring run, making larger Hogy Epoxy Jigs in green or blue hot items for their casting qualities as well the fact that they match-the-hatch.

CAPE COD BAY

I always appreciate it when a good old school approach produces a good bite and Jeff said that up in Plymouth, shore anglers fishing white, black, or yellow Danny plugs at night have been catching some big bass. Another hot lure is the large tandem rigged soft plastic jerk bait in black; he said the shop had about 50 of those lures and sold all of them over the weekend – with another order already placed.

On the other hand, down around Manomet, there is a lot of snag-and-drop shenanigans going on around the pogy schools in the area. The state can make any rule it wants about transferring a pogy to a circle hook before actively fishing it, but without enforcement, this style of fishing will continue if there are dollar signs on a bass’s head. And that holds true in both the recremercial sector and a too large percentage of the for hire community.

Recreational anglers have no reason to push the boundary and hope they don’t caught, but there is always the convenient excuse about snagging a pogy and then having a bass inhale it before it can be reeled back to the boat.

Both in the waters that run from Plymouth on up towards Boston and the stretch from the east entrance down to Barnstable, trolling deep diving swimming plugs on lead core line is popular amongst anglers who don’t want to deal with live or fresh dead bait. Generally speaking, fast trolling deep diving swimmers on lead core line – Jeff specified around five knots – is producing bigger bass around first light, with that approach popular and productive in both areas, but more folks around the Cape are inclined to use it since the availability of live pogies isn’t as predictable as it is around the south shore.

The tube-and-worm is still working, but the advantage of the deep swimmers for diesel vessels and folks with older outboards is that speed element. A diesel and even gas operated inboards typically require a trolling valve to operate at the slower speeds that the tube technique typically requires, but dragging swimming plugs a higher speeds doesn’t impact them. 

Shore anglers who fish the Cape’s east-west stretch of CCB shoreline will do well to familiarize themselves with the many outflow areas on the northside. Under the cover of darkness, it’s common to drift floating swimmers and other styles of plugs that fish well “on the swing.” Bait fishing – especially pogy chunks or live eels – is another approach that works well in beach areas adjacent to creek mouths and even in the vicinity of harbors that empty into the bay.

BONITO – IN THE SOUNDS, AROUND THE ELIZABETHS, AND ON THE VINEYARD

I fished the Wasque area on Sunday with Michael Beebe and it was the best bonito fishing I have ever experienced – period. The surface activity was so consistent and people with spinning tackle were doubling and tripling up and tossing them in coolers that I wondered if it were possible that some were selling them to restaurants or even fish markets directly.

It’s fairly common to troll for bonito when fishing open water; once a fish is caught and a school located, it’s more fun – and productive at times as well – to revert to casting. These fish are well known for their reticence and willingness to reject a perfectly placed fly or casting jig, but in areas with strong current – such as rip lines – the action has been off the charts.

A word to the wise: it might be tempting to chase the terns that accompany schools of other baitfish, but on numerous cases yesterday, Michael and I watched a mini-flotilla of crazed anglers start to make a run on a school of bones on top, but we just hung out where the fish had been and hooked up, with their presence only indicated by brief splashes that could be lost in the rip’s white water.

I heard similar reports from folks like Capt. Ben Sussman of In The Net Sportfishing Cape Cod, whose anglers on Sunday landed 16 bones and a few bluefish. Basically, Ben said, if you got a cast into the bones when they were boiling, the odds were heavily favoring a hook up.

Similar success was had by boats fishing the rip lines or taking the time to determine where the bait concentrations are heaviest. Both sounds have appealed to anglers who have located good numbers of bones feeding around different rip lines, including Hedge Fence, Succonesset, and Eldridge, that are closer to the dock or ramp.

Numerous people told me that while checking out an active rip line is a good way to fish, they found that cruising the sounds looking for signs of bonito or albies could be a good practice since they have been popping up without warning and staying up.

 

Monday

 

The sounds are filled with small bait, including sand eels, silversides, and a juvenile baitfish that some folks have described to me, but I still don’t have an ID on.

There are also some areas with lots of baby squid, which makes white a top choice if you are fly fishing or fishing small soft plastics – with the optimal word being small.

This smorgasbord is producing some fantastic bonito action in the sounds. In fact, Bob Lewis sent a photo of the crew of he had on board today, noting “This crew just released 60+ fish in the Osterville Anglers’ Club Game of Shoals… including 5 bonito… so fun!!” And so much talent at such a young age!

More bluefish in the mix, from schools of four to six pounders mixed in with the bonito to some much larger ones in deeper water, where a one of Capt. Mike’s Jigging Approaches is the way to go. Remember, this is vertical jigging, not snapping wire, and one of the keys to being successful fishing this way is to vary your technique based on the type of jig you are using, the depth of water, and even the bottom structure in the area.

Capt. Mike’s Inshore Playbook covers his favorite jigging patterns and details about rigging; suggestions about the type of rod-and-reel combinations that are best for this approach; and how to pick the best jig – metal, weighted soft plastic, or even the Hogy Surface Eraser – for where you are fishing and the prevalent bait you are trying to imitate.

One major advantage of using the Hogy System Approach is that the same outfit you are using to vertical jig for bass can be re-rigged for groundfishing. If you are in shallower water with less current the Hogy Groundfish Biki Jig – in sizes up to 3 ounces – is a good choice, along with heavier versions of the Hogy Epoxy Jig and the Heavy Minnow Jig. Both the Hogy Squinnow and Sand Eel Jigs are versatile options since you can use lighter models – say up to 3.5 ounces – for use in water up to say, 40 feet, or if you are looking for larger sea bass and fluke in depths up to 90 feet where the water really moves during peak stages, the former runs up to 8.5 ounces and the latter tops out at a 16 ounce model.

Match them up with a Hogy Biki Rig and you can catch dinner on the way in if your pursuit of more “glamorous” species such as bass, bonito tuna, mahi, or even bluefish doesn’t produce fish for the table. In fact, I know that Mike is a huge fan of both black sea bass and scup – and he surely wouldn’t turn down some fluke either.

WOODS HOLE AND THE ELIZABETHS

Today was day one of trips I look forward to each summer with a family that knows how to both have fun fishing and carry on some fascinating conversations – the Hogan-O’Toole clan, featuring Mike’s sister, Deb; her husband, George O’Toole; and Brennan and Ian, who were boys when I first met them but are now not so much.

Although the current was running stronger than I like – in fact, the water was really churning, perhaps due to a wind out of the east/southeast since we are almost a week past the full impact of full moon on July 21 – the Hogy Charter Grade Popper produced some very nice stripers. As if you have to ask, but we were using the medium size in amber. Even when the fish are feeding on smaller bait – which included baby squid – this floating popper draws some super aggressive reactions.

As the tide started to slow, I shifted to seven-inch Hogy Originals in bone mounted on weighted swimbait hooks, which I was sure would do the trick since they have in the past even when the bait is super small. Clearly, I needed to go to something smaller, but never got around to it.

Funny that some people are complaining that a few albies have showed “too soon,” but I don’t think Malcolm Austin minded as he landed one down towards Cuttyhunk yesterday.

THE CANAL

Like pretty much any area you might fish on the Cape and islands, once you get a little complacent and think you have a bite figured out, the fish can shift gears and you better be ready to react.

Jeff Miller at Canal Bait and Tackle in Sagamore reported that the action was best at the tanker cut as well as down by the power lines, with the fish seemingly feeding more on pogies as opposed to being totally focused on the mackerel that had moved into eastern parts of the Big Ditch over the prior four or five days. White swimmers caught a lot of fish, but Jeff added that Hogy Epoxy Jigs from 1.25 to 2 ounces worked as well, a pretty good sign that there is some smaller bait in the land cut as well.

CAPE COD BAY

When I mentioned to Jeff that there must have been a ton of boats out in the bay – specifically from Plymouth to Barnstable, he replied, “There were something like 100 boats off of Manomet Point and all of them caught decent bass.”

Along with livelining pogies, the choices in artificials in that area matched the hatch – bunker spoons and larger, deep diving swimming plugs like Hogy Charter Grade Swimmer.

Apparently, the beach action from Sandwich to Dennis has been good at night, both for folks fishing chunk bait such as mackerel or live eels, as well as a few who fish larger soft plastics or even swing flies in the outgoing current.

MONOMOY AND THE OUTER CAPE

Similar to what I found in Woods Hole this week as a new, larger class of bass seemed to show up or they had decided to feed from the wee hours of the morning until well after sun up, Jake Mandirola from North Chatham Outfitters said that Monomoy has seen a bush of bigger stripers since late last week. He fished there on Thursday and the fishing was even better – well, than it has been all season and folks have been raving about the action since the fish showed up in the rips.

There are more high 30 inch bass along with some well over 40 and beyond; I suspect that the selling community has caught on to this and Jake did say that they have been selling a lot of eels lately, with one guy scooping up ten pounds for one day’s fishing. Actually, let me rephrase that since this group typically fishes at night, although you have no hope of finding out what they are up to.

One point that Jake emphasized if you are heading to the shoals is that what lures or techniques are working can change from day-to-day. During his visit, they used pretty much all subsurface presentations, including narrow bodied Finnish style swimmers – think sand eels or mackerel  – as well as jig head/soft plastic combinations.

The next day, according to the angler Jake was fishing with the day before, it was mainly a topwater bite, although white and pink remained hot colors no matter what type of lure that is being used.

Jake added that the backside beaches from Nauset on up are fishing well, perhaps due to more winds out of the east that have pushed bait in and produced some more white water – but no real mung to speak of. Shallow running versions of the aforementioned narrow body/Finnish style swimmers are a staple of the local sand people, along with sand eel imitation soft plastics and larger, tandem rigged soft baits. More than any other place on the Cape, needlefish are a staple of the hardcore surf fishermen from Chatham to Provincetown. That said, if you asked ten of them, you would get ten different answers as to which type fishes best. Come to think of it, you would probably have to give them shots of truth serum since none of them would willingly give up that kind of info, especially the handful who make their own needles.

You don’t hear much about their use anymore, but rest assured that live eels are being used under the cover of darkness.

On my last couple of trips to Chatham, I was impressed by the schools of pogies that were giving away their presence due to their characteristic flipping and flashing – as well as when they erupted out of the water when seals balled them up and then dove in for an easy meal.

And anyone who knows stripers is well aware that they love nothing more than pogies and Jake knows that more than a few folks are netting them to fish along Harding’s Beach, as well as by boat up inside Stage Harbor and Chatham Harbor. High, incoming water along the shorefront from Monomoy up to Nauset is another area where you will find stinkpot anglers using pogies.

I wasn’t sure where to include this last bit of news from Jake since it involves tuna, but I’m going to talk about it right here since it doesn’t involve the usual suspects – you know, Crab Ledge, the BB and BC Buoys, and the Regal Sword. In this case, what I assume was a pretty surprised angler was fishing on a school of larger bass a ways off Nauset when he hooked up with a tuna and it spooled him. These are recreational fish, on average in the 50 inch range, Jake pointed out, although he wouldn’t say it was a hot bite, perhaps just another example of how wind direction impacts bait movement and a variety of fish species are very clearly tuned in to what is going on in the waters where they swim.

 

Last Friday 

 

You get a day like today with cooler temperatures and, most importantly, a dew point in the high 50’s and it’s easy to start dreaming of the fall, but the reality is that starting this weekend the humidity is going to increase and by the middle of next week it’s predicted that we will be back in the soup with dew points over 70 which should help the fog roll back in the sounds and especially down Monomoy and the backside area.

But as much as I revel in the thought of post Labor Day conditions, the reality is that the advent of late July brings with it more bonito and the start of false albacore mania, something that a majority of light tackle and fly rod boat anglers around the upper and mid Cape areas look forward.

Since they have no interest in running their boats east to Chatham or through the Canal into Cape Cod Bay, no matter how many bass that are being caught, they are perfectly happy to play with bluefish – which had been a really tough find but seem to be showing in greater numbers – or take Capt. Mike’s Plan B approach and do some groundfishing.

Folks who trailer like I do have less of an issue of heading to other waters where the stripers enjoying colder water and more abundant foot sources – especially larger bait such as squid or pogies or even larger, oceanic sand eels – but I have to tell you that 2 to 3 AM wake up calls are the norm for me since I need to get to the ramp before sun up to make sure I get a parking spot at some of the smaller ramps I use.

And then there’s the trip home late morning or early afternoon in summertime traffic, which makes dragging a boat even more stressful since speeding up to squeeze a rig like mine is definitely a popular game with the tourists and even the numerous year round and part time newcomers to the Cape who don’t recognize that fishing and boats are part of the culture.

Having just said that, I can’t help picturing Mr. Bill Gallagher, who was in his 80’s when I started working for him, on more than one occasion scoffing at twin outboard boats the size of which “we ran in the old days with a diesel that had half the horsepower that one of those engines has. Boats were meant to move through the water, not fly over the top of it.”

I can only imagine what he would think of the ever increasing number of sleds with triples and quads, as well as a few with trips strapped to their sterns.

In any case, times are a changin’, as the saying goes, and that’s why my trips down the Elizabeths are so much more enjoyable for me than cruising past the despoiled Popponesset shoreline that looks nothing like it did when I was a kid.

Our local archipelago, however, is frozen in time and always will be as the human race wobbles out of control in a race to get somewhere that they’re not even sure can or should exist.

NANTUCKET

CORRECTION: I TRIED TO GET A PHOTO OF ME WITH EGG ON MY FACE BECAUSE FRANKLY IT’S MORE IMPORTANT THAT I GET THE SIMPLEST FACT RIGHT, NEVER MIND ANY DETAILS.

IF ANY OF MY FORMER STUDENTS READ THIS, THEY’RE GOING TO LOVE IT SINCE I ALWAYS GOT ON THEM ABOUT READING SOMETHING THOROUGHLY.

WELL, BEN’S TEXT SAID HE HE CAUGHT THE ALBIE IN NANTUCKET SOUND, NOT NANTUCKET! HE CLEARLY SAID NANTUCKET SOUND IN THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE AND  WHEN I ASKED FOR SPECIFICS TONIGHT AND HE SAID THE WASQUE AREA, I GOT THAT QUEASY FEELING IN MY STOMACH!

AT LEAST IT WAS CAUGHT ON A PINK HOGY EPOXY JIG FROM A BONITO FEED!

AND I SAVED NANTUCKET FROM HAVING TO DEAL WITH A SCENE TOMORROW LIKE THE ONE IN JAWS.

I posted in earlier, but Capt. Ben Sussman on In The Net Sportfishing Cape Cod texted me – with a photo – of an albie that his charter caught on Nantucket today. Apparently, some folks want more details that I provided, which frankly I didn’t ask for and I still believe there is something of value – to paraphrase the late, great John Houseman – in catching fish the old fashioned way – earn them!

Now, there is nobody on the island more in touch with the angling scene than Capt. Corey Gammill is and he said the bonito fishing is simply incredible and he has heard from a number of folks who swore they had seen some false albacore. He, in fact, on a recent trip saw breaking fish whose activities looked more like little tunny than bones and after hooking one it made a powerful run more in tune with the larger, tuna shaped cousin as opposed to its more mackerel designed relative. Alas, once at the boat, it proved to be a bonito, although I know plenty of people who would be very happy to have one for the grill.

Overall, Corey said there are bonito being caught all around the island, with Great Point, the southeast corner, and the usual haunts to the west – including the Bonito Bar and Smith’s Point stacked. Many of them are in the two to three pound range, but Corey’s anglers have managed some really big ones such as the fish that did a good job of imitating an albie.

Corey prefers to use casting jigs when targeting bonito and re-rigs them by taking off the tail treble and replacing it with a single. Most chrome finished or foil wrapped/painted lead jigs, along with types originated by the Hogy Epoxy Jig, feature just that tail hooks, but there are a few with multiples that make no sense when targeting funny fish.

I have often commented on how certain lures, especially plug types, are popular in some areas of the Cape and islands while they are rarely or ever seen in the bags or tackle boxes of anglers in areas where the same species of fish are caught.

Out on Nantucket, for example, casting brightly colored, smaller swimming plugs that owe their popularity to the master, Lauri Rapala, is very popular. Nowadays, a wide variety of what are generically called “crankbaits” are produced in different types of plastics, while in 1936, Rapala started the whole thing by carving his lures out of balsa wood in Finland.

Some of the newer models have managed to overcome the primary bugaboo with crankbaits that in the past required home workshop solutions, such as drilling or melting a hole into the bait’s hollow plastic body and adding some form of liquid – including highly toxic mercury – as well as small lead shot to make them cast better. There are now companies that have done the word of overcoming the limited casting qualities of crankbaits due to light weight and the protruding swimming lip by adding a series of BB’s that move fore and aft during the cast or retrieve. These so called long cast designs are rapidly gaining popularity among shore anglers, even in places like the Canal, since they know how effective they are.

Unlike the Big Ditch, however, where the length of one’s cast can mean the difference between catching and beating empty water, Nantucket features areas like the appropriately named Bonito Bar where the fish follow a distinctive current seam or rip line, creating a line up of boats who await a school passing close by that they can reach with a relatively short cast. Around Great Point, the long cast models have really caught on among the sand people who can now reach the funnies with these highly effective swimming plugs.

There is definitely improvement in the numbers and range in sizes of bluefish around Nantucket; as Corey said, an area like Great Point, Sconset, or Coatue can produce really big fish, but the next day the blues are all in the three to four pound class. The Grey Lady is renowned for her blues, whether from shore or boat, with a local plug called the Rabbit often credited for kicking off the long cast family that earned their keep, especially for the sand people who need distance above all else.

While many of these plugs had bodies that were tear drop shaped – with tapers, scooped out sections, and facets unique to each one – they were all heavily tail weighted yet easy to skip on the water’s surface. Gibbs’ made their own version round and stubbier, but similarly tapering from a narrow nose to a wide tail and it was always one of my favorites, with Capt. Mike modifying that style with his new Long Range Surface Eraser series, which features a more gradual taper and overall longer body for each weight.

Some of the long cast – both homemade or manufactured – floated and others sank like the Surface Eraser, but the advantage of a subsurface model is that not only can you work it on top, but you can swim it subsurface or even use it for vertical jigging.

Corey told me he makes his own bluefish plugs out of three quarter inch dowels and also rigs them with a single tail hook, which in most cases is a Siwash that is designed with a long point for easy penetration and a wide gap that keeps the fish from throwing the plug. A longer plug body that is absent any belly hooks makes a convenient handle for controlling and landing fish like blues that have menacing dentures.

While shore anglers continue to pick up bass at night on the southside beaches, especially when there is a good swell hitting the sand and creating lots of white, heavily oxygenated water, the key is to use subsurface presentations, including bucktail jigs and sand eel imitating casting jigs. Although Corey spoke of using the “rubber worm” on his boat when the fish are holding deeper in the water column and he can’t bring them up, this same lure – whether it’s an internally weighted slim or eel shape soft plastic or a combination of a jighead and the same basic soft plastic design – is a great shore lure.

Finally, a common pattern during the summer for the boat crew is to concentrate on the colder, deeper spots to the east side of the island such as Old Man Shoal, Orion Shoal, or Doormat Shoal, the latter getting its name from producing monster fluke that are called – you guessed it – doormats. You will also good numbers of Nantucket boats around the Monomoy Shoals.

That said, Corey said it isn’t always necessary to make a long run east or north of the island if you pay attention to wind direct and bait availability. For example, this week the wind was more out of the north/northeast, creating good water up around Great Point. Sure enough, after catching a number of bonito, Corey noticed birds working closer to the shore and moved in to investigate. After two of the anglers on board casting in towards shore and hooked up immediately before dropping their fish, a third member of the group was delayed in making his cast and still hooked up and landed his fish – a fine striped bass. And for the next good while, they picked up several more casting plugs and jigs.

NANTUCKET AND VINEYARD SOUNDS – AND WHERE DOES THE VINEYARD FIT?

Bonito were at the top of Amy Wrightson’s report, as the owner of the Sports Port in Hyannis and Osterville texted to say “I have heard of people catching near Hyannis, Osterville, New Seabury, Horseshoe, and the Vineyard. Some folks are trolling swimming plugs while others are casting soft plastics, resins, and metals.”

If you’re looking for larger sea bass, fluke, or scup, Amy recommended checking out deeper water in Vineyard Sound, with a good number of boats groundfishing off Gay Head and Squibnocket, as well as even farther out towards Noman’s.

She did say that folks fishing the southside beaches this week also were catching some legal sized fluke, which is so good to hear since it’s usually only boat anglers who get chances to catch one of the best eating fish in our waters.

Felix Bandito also confirmed a rumor I heard about big bluefish around Squibby; most midday action has been a result of wire line or vertical jigging, but first light has seen them finning and more than willing to hit surface lures, especially if you time it towards either side of slack water.

CAPE COD BAY

Along with reports I got this week of bigger bass for flyrodders and spin folks along the beachfront and especially where the creeks and marshes flow out into open water, Amy Wrightson talked to folks who were catching some quality fish inside Barnstable Harbor using weighted soft plastics.

Jeff Miller heard there were still pogy schools off Plymouth and he said a good portion of the bass population has been sticking with them, moving from “Ellisville up to Duxbury Beach. Night fishing along most beaches in that area have been great.” Tandem rigged larger soft plastics and metal lip swimmers have been especially productive.

THE CANAL

Jeff said there was a good bite around the east end this morning, with his heavy Canal Shads and similar designs working especially well. Mackerel have been moving in with the tide, so green mack has been a hot seller, but white or bone are favored by many folks who prefer the versatility of this basic color that imitates so many types of bait in terms of profile and action.

He added that a group of anglers wiped him out of white jointed glide baits that they typically fish around the middle – think east to west, not shore to shore – of the land cut.