Outer Cape

Most light tackle recreational anglers aren’t complaining about the number of 30 to 32-inch bass that are predominant from Nauset Inlet up to Provincetown; there are flurries of fish feeding on the surface among schools of sand eels, but the challenge is often getting your lure noticed among all the natural stuff.

Paul Newmier at Blackbeard’s in Eastham said the beach fishing from Nauset up to Provincetown is pretty much the same story it has been for weeks: good numbers of schoolies and the occasional just legal fish, mainly on bait such as sand eels or mackerel.

As far as the backside beaches go, Paul Newmier told me you can walk for miles along the outer Cape sand and not see a single angler. The few that are fishing are soaking sand eels or tossing lures that imitate this baitfish.

This season has not seen a return of the vertical jig bite that dominated the commercial bass catch on the Cape for years, but the fish buying truck that Paul Newmier spoke to this week at Bass River told him that not many bass are being brought in.

From the Golf Balls and up around to the Race, light tackle recreational anglers are having a lot of fun catching bass from 26 to the low-30-inch class on plugs, metal jigs, and weighted and unweighted soft plastics. At times, especially around high tide in the early morning and again at dusk, these schools are pretty tight to the beach, but the key to locating fish is primarily a matter of finding the vast schools of sand eels.

The opportunity to catch a larger bass from shore continues to be greater from the bayside beaches as opposed to the backside; Sunken Meadow to the beaches around the Pamet River are popular locales, although with the height of summer soon upon us, fishing will be limited to the hours before to just after sunrise and again in the evening when the beachgoers have gone home.

Other than small bass up inside Pleasant Bay and along the backside beaches, things have been pretty quiet along the lower stretches of the outer Cape. Paul Newmier at Blackbeard’s in Eastham reported that plug fishing has been working on schoolies at pretty much every beach from Nauset to Wellfleet; Bombers, Daiwa SP Minnows, and Al Gag’s Whip-it Fish are lures that Paul recommends.

This is one of those situations where plenty of small fish should be celebrated since people had become accustomed to very little in the way of action from the backside beaches. Now, at least you can lighten up on your tackle and have some fun with schoolies that are in good numbers, reported Paul Newmier at Blackbeard’s in Eastham.

The beaches have definitely been fishing better this year, with a few small legal fish mixed in with plenty of schoolies from all of the beaches between Nauset and Provincetown.