Strike While The Iron's Hot

Our local waters are loaded with life and fishing very well at the moment. Fresh with sea lice, migratory striped bass have returned to the area and are corralling pods of Atlantic menhaden in the shallows. Like clockwork, bluefish have also joined the party. In addition, thousands of alewives and blueback herring are dropping out of tidal rivers while schools of silversides and sand eels round out the baitfish smorgasbord.

Now would be a good time to log some hours on the water before summer sets in. Water temperatures remain cool enough for nice bass to be taken close to shore in broad daylight. As long as all this food sticks around, the shallow water all-you-can-eat buffet will continue. And as the water warms up, it will be time to start playing the night game a little more. Bottom line: go fish!

The Cape

Cape Cod will forever hold a dear place in my heart. For many years our family spent summer vacations there. We stayed on Long Pond in Harwich usually in the mid July. By day we would lounge at the lake or make the short ride to Nauset Beach or Chatham Light. On early mornings and late nights we fished all over the spit of sand jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean like a flexing arm. 

The Cape has long been one of the most fabled fishing grounds for striped bass in the surf. With endless amounts of sandy beaches, Bay-side flats, and a canal that acts as a super highway for fish, Cape Cod hosts a wide array of habitat and forage to draw in the largest of stripers.

A memorable sunrise over the Cape's Herring Cove



Sand eels are the predominant bait found in Cape waters

While the outer Cape has taken a hit in recent years thanks to the incredible influx of grey seals, it will always be known as one of the birthplaces of modern day surf fishing. During the glory days of the outer beaches, 50-pound class fish from shore were a common occurrence. The biggest bass of them all was a 73-pound behemoth taken in the Nauset surf on a teaser fly by Tony Stetzko in 1981. The expansive flats in Cape Cod Bay are another world class fishery, one I love to take advantage of with friends and family when the tides line up for us. The Canal is amazing too and probably the best of all in terms of quality of striped bass fishing as of late. It has miles paved access roads lining either side making it one of the more easily accessible spots in New England. Bottom line, if you love surf fishing then you have to love Cape Cod--it has it all.  

 

The Cape's bay-side flats offer excellent sight-fishing opportunties