The albie fishing has been variable on the south side, with a lot of reports of going hours at a time searching for pods of breaking fish. There has definitely been an uptick in the schoolie activity along the south facing beaches from Falmouth to Chatham, as well as up inside pretty much every protected body of water along the same stretch of shoreline.
The Sounds
There were some schools of bluefish working the rip outside Waquoit, and there might have been a few albies as well, but generally the few boats in the area kept drifting and hoping for something to happen. There were albies from Osterville to Craigville, but the feeds weren’t epic like we would expect right now.
Bonito have been caught at pretty much every hotspot that is mentioned in stories and reports about this species. The reality is if you are there at the right moment, then you will have some good shots. Generally speaking, most of the breaking fish you will find in the sounds are bluefish, with some schools comprised of two to three-pounders and others a mix of six to eight pound fish.
It only makes sense to start with shore anglers since these last couple of weeks have been tough on them;…
Shore fishermen all along the southside continue to have success with mainly small bass, especially now that large amounts of small bait are gathered up inside the numerous backwaters as well as the channels feeding into Nantucket Sound.
Schools of small bluefish are fairly easy to find for boaters in the sound from Mashpee to Chatham, with terns and gulls marking where they are feeding on small bait. Topwater plugs, both poppers and spooks, are fun when it comes to casting for blues.
What else could I start with than bonito since bass fishing is pretty slow in the sounds and too many folks don’t want to deal with the hordes of small bluefish that are everywhere in Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds.
One to three-pound bluefish have appeared up and down Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds, especially from Falmouth to Hyannis. They will take pretty much anything shiny and as with any other species of fish you intend to release, switching over to lures with single hooks is the way to go. As a reminder, there is no size limit on bluefish, but there is a ten fish per day bag limit per person.
Middle Ground is the only spot where I have heard of stripers being caught on any kind of a consistent basis; we’re talking schoolies up to maybe 24-inches feeding on sand eels and other small bait. Prior to all this nastiness, there were schools of smaller bass throughout the sounds from the Elizabeths to Nobska and down to Popponesset; small, tight groups of terns were the giveaway to their presence.
Small bluefish and the occasional small bass continue to be caught along the southside beaches, and the bluefish action has picked up significantly over the last week on the shoals of the Sounds. For keeper bass, eeling at night has been the best strategy.