Wild Peninsula

    Whales have summered here
    Before the Wampanoag,
    And long after us.

Vacation Blitz

“Lotto fishing,” quipped the Cape Codder from across the street. “You need to be in the right place at the right time and get lucky.”

My family and I were renting the same cottage that we have each summer for the last several years. While chats with the neighbor are minimal during our stay, I always take stock in what he says. A hardworking waterman, in summers past he had gifted us freshly-raked little necks. This time he offered fishing advice, or at least hope that something special could happen if luck was on my side.

There was a pile of striped bass feeding just offshore of the outer beaches, and they could easily follow bait to within casting range at a moment’s notice, but you needed to be there when it happened. Reports from other anglers and tackle shops nearby confirmed as much. So, while it was a family vacation, I put in as much time fishing as I could get away with.

Our third day there was the Sabbath. We spent it at our favorite bayside beach. I brought my fly gear along and spotted a few spooky stripers on the flats during low flood tide. Despite some casts in front of moving targets, there were no takers. Come to find out, these bass have been dialed-in on crabs more than usual and I made the mistake of having only sand eels in my fly box. The lesson here being that you should always hit the local fishing shop at the beginning of vacation. Even still, it was really neat to see stripers hunt the shallows in August, and I hope the adrenaline rush from sight-casting never fades.

After the Bay, we went mini golfing, grilled burgers back at the cottage, then biked down the street for homemade ice cream. It was still early, around 6 p.m., when we decided on a whim to see the water again, this time the ocean. I put the surf rod on top of the truck just in case. I had fished and blanked on this stretch of shoreline the previous two sunrises. No signs of fish or bait that I could tell, but the large seals cruising the surf line hinted otherwise.

The evening beach crowd was in full effect when we arrived. Large groups of vacationers sitting in Tommy Bahama chairs, set up in half-moons facing the water. I spiked my rod and laid a blanket on the beach berm, but no one sat. We all stood there soaking in our surroundings, enjoying the waves crashing at our feet and the sun getting lower in the sky behind us.

My wife pointed it out first. A few hundred yards to our left, there was a large patch of water darker than the rest, parallel to shore with a commotion of birds flying around it. It was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; a bonified blitz that was slowly moving south towards us. I could see a line of fishermen at the water’s edge in the distance, but it was hard to make out if they were hooked up or not. To be honest, I didn’t freak out right away because the action looked beyond casting distance. Once I saw splashes tighter to shore, on the inner side of the main body of fish, I bid adieu to my family and began a brisk walk to intercept the melee.

The walk changed to a jog when bent rods came into view. The beachgoers I passed were completely oblivious to what was going on, at least for the time being. I stopped well short of the nearest angler, it was a kid from Canada who was catching hickory shad on epoxy jigs when we first arrived. The fish he was casting to now were striped bass, thousands of them gorging on unidentified baitfish.

The plug I had been using most on the trip to this point was a pencil popper in a green mackerel pattern made my 247 Lures. That was before I broke it off earlier in the day and watched it bob-away in shark-infested waters. What I reached for next was more sentimental, a flat-bottomed pencil turned decades ago by the late John Haberek.  I clipped on the Hab’s, leaned back and launched the furthest cast I could. A striper crushed it on the surface before a full turn of the reel handle. It had been a long time since I had hooked one in the Atlantic surf—it felt damn good.

When the bass came through the last wave and hit the wet sand, a few inquisitive kids stepped forward asking all kinds of questions. As instructed, they avoided the pointy dorsal fin and ran their fingers down the flank of the fish before watching it dart back into the wash. By now my family had caught up and served as a cheering section and paparazzi rolled into one. The highlight of the whole vacation was sharing the unfolding scene with them. A second cast into the outskirts of the frothing water produced a tight line nearly as fast as the first. Another bass, not especially large, but aggressive and punching above its weight class in the ocean currents.

The next 20 minutes went on like that...wash, rinse, repeat. Acres of boiling water sluggishly moved down the beach as anglers followed along, fighting and releasing fish, then leap-frogging others who were hooked up in order to get in position for their next cast. The noncombatants behind us watched in awe at what was taking place. There was good reason to be amazed. I had been visiting and fishing the Cape for more than two decades and had never stumbled into anything like it. Only once before did something remotely similar happen to me on vacation, about 25 years earlier with my Uncle Frank in Charlestown, Rhode Island, but even then, that blitz was all bluefish.    

While it all felt surreal, I was ready for this exact scenario, beaching a half dozen stripers up to the mid-30-inch class and dropping a few others. By the time we made it back to our blanket, the top-water action drifted far enough away from shore to make the decision to call it a night easier. A few anglers kept up in pursuit, but the damage was done was for us. My girls and I absorbed what just went down while enjoying the last frames of sunset.

Each of the next four days, we spent significant time along the Cape’s outer beaches and never saw another fish or bent rod, still marine life was all around us. We were treated to an incredible display of whales a few hundred yards offshore, humpbacks full-on breaching and bubble-net feeding for hours. Another lively sighting was a giant ocean sunfish, mostly exciting because its fin poking out of the water looked awfully like a shark fin as it passed us on the beach.

Toward the end of our trip, I visited a tackle shop to stock up on crab flies and replace the pencil popper I had lost earlier in the week. In comparing notes with one of the employees, he experienced the same blitz we did, and shared that the next three evenings at that beach were dead; no signs of life anywhere. In turns out, we were in the right place at the right time and got lucky. That’s lotto fishing for you.

Cape Life

The whole clan was together again this month after a year and a half without being under the same roof. We spent a week to remember in Brewster, Massachusetts, in a house within walking distance to Cape Cod Bay. It was an extremely chill vacation with a lot of bonding between my two-year-old daughter and the West Coast faction of our family. 

Being on Cape Cod and all, a little fishing had to be done. I first tried finding life on the nearby flats, but never made a cast. I suspect the water was on the warmer side for sight-fishing to stripers during the daylight tide window I was given. At least the Cape Cod Canal was kinder. I brought my younger brother for two sunrise sessions. It was his first taste of the Canal and I couldn't have been happier for him when he connected just a few casts in. It was a small bluefish that puked up two different sizes of peanut bunker. Not exactly the target species we were after, but the sunk was off. With a little confidence under his belt, wouldn't you know he comes tight again a few casts later, this time with a bass. It was on the smaller side, but it was his first from Cape Cod waters and it was awesome to witness.  

When the sun came up, some fish started breaking on the surface at the tail-end of our casting range. We switched over from swimmers to poppers and gave it the old college try. A few takers came unbuttoned before I finally brought one to the rocks. Not huge by any means, but they still put up a decent scrap in the Canal current. We came back two days later and tried again, finding more breaking fish and more people trying to reach them. They were schoolies and out of range for the most part, but a bona fide 50-pounder was taken early that morning on an eel--the angler posed nearby us for a deserving photo shoot. You never know what's swimming by on the Cape; you just have to keep casting. 

A Cape Weekend

When the invitation for an October wedding in Cape Cod came in the mail, my wife and I were more than pleased. The fall is a wonderful time of year to be there and the fishing is usually good too. Truro resembled a ghost town when we arrived the Friday before the wedding, which was a welcomed change from the usual hustle and bustle we encounter there every summer. All wedding guests booked rooms in a small motel on Route 6A that overlooked the expansive Cape Cod Bay. In the courtyard of the motel, there was a huge white tent for the following day's reception, which meant a short walk (read: stumble) back to the room!

Low tide on the vast Cape Cod Bay

A look at downtown Provincetown in the distance.

Once settled, we drove a few miles north to Provincetown and dined at a very nice restaurant that lived up to its hype. Their martini list was longer than most menus I've seen, but the thing I enjoyed most were the oysters on the half shell, which were plucked from Wellfleet waters that very day.

Wellfleet oysters are a must when on Cape Cod! They are some of the best in the world.

Being on the Cape in October, it was pretty much mandatory to sneak in some fishing time. So after a nice catnap, I found myself driving down an empty Route 6 to the Cape Cod Canal. It's kind of ironic because I used to drive right over the Canal on my way to fish the back beaches of Truro and Provincetown without thinking twice about it. Now I was staying right in Truro and driving over an hour in the opposite direction. It just goes to show how fishing spots and habits change over time.

A few phone calls and emails to contacts in the Cape helped formulate my fishing plans that morning. Reports weren't excellent, yet there had been some striped bass cooperating in the Canal at night and first light. With coffee in hand, I strolled down the service road on the mainland-side of the Canal by 5 AM. It was just enough time to get in position and get my bearings before the sun came up. I was far from alone however, as the easy access and consistency of the Canal usually spells competition, especially at dawn.

The first hints of day break with the Sagamore Bridge in the background.

After posting up at a spot that I had never fished before, I began rotating through the ridiculous amount of lures I brought along.  There was a good deal of bait, young of the year herring was my guess, that were getting gobbled up by cormorants working in front of me. When I heard the first pop as the eastern sky began to brighten, I made the switch to surface lures.

A super tanker getting towed through the canal. Note the cormorant in the foreground.

There was a long line of anglers on both sides of the Canal with a respectable distance in between them. Unfortunately, no one was catching anything. Every once in a while a striper would crash baitfish on the surface, so at least we all knew there were fish to be had. The next plug out of my bag was a custom Super Strike Little Neck Popper that I had won through a contest on Facebook. It was a sinking 2 3/8-ounce version that is one of the best kept secrets in surfcasting because it's a popper that swims better than most swimmers.Not only does it have great action, the plug casts like a missile. In about a 30-minute span, I hooked three stripers using it, landing two of them, both feisty fish just under 20-pounds.

The custom Little Neck Popper

I was proud to catch those fish, especially because they were the only two I saw caught all morning. They were also the first bass I had taken on that lure and it was the first time I had caught fish on the mainland-side of the Canal. After a couple of hours and my head held high, I made the trek back to Truro and enjoyed the awesome wedding festivities. The ceremony was in a historic church in Provincetown, then we partied under the tent at the motel into the wee hours of the morning. One particular highlight for me was the raw bar. The groom and his wedding party were recreational tuna fishermen and landed three 60-pound  Bluefin earlier that week. Along with the tuna sashimi, Wellfleet Oyster & Clam Co. served up their finest shellfish. It was a perfect touch for a Cape Cod wedding.

Another top-water bass from the Cape Cod Canal

The Big Ditch

While I'm grateful to be able to catch striped bass close to home, most storied haunts along the Striper Coast are a decent drive for me, the Cape Cod Canal being one. I try to make a couple trips to the Cape each year and there was a time when I blew right over the Bourne or Sagamore Bridges without giving much thought to the striped bass super highway below me. All that has changed in recent years, as I am trying like hell to learn the ins and outs of "The Big Ditch," which isn't easy when you live nearly 200 miles from it.

This year's trip was planned a little earlier than in the past, trying to time perfectly the annual run of big striped traveling from Buzzard's Bay through the Canal into Cape Cod Bay. When you can only go a couple days a season, this is essentially like rolling the dice. However, the more times you play, the better chances you have to win. So one of these years our educated guesses will become more precise and we'll hopefully "hit it right"; that or we'll just get lucky and step in shit! I'll take either...

Aaron, Derrick and I made a commando run one Sunday night in mid-May. Aaron purchased a brandy new bike rack to hold our three "Canal Cruisers" and we crossed the Canal just before midnight. That gave us nearly five hours of alone time in the dark before the masses would show for first light. For all the stories you hear about overcrowding at the Canal, in our limited trips there at night, we luckily haven't seen many anglers at all.

I wish I could say the fishing was on fire, but it just wasn't the case. We landed a few striped bass in the 15-pound range right away and missed some others, though it was pretty slow overall. The morning bite was rather nonexistent too, at least where we were, but that's the way it is sometimes. Of course in the days and weeks following our trip, when we couldn't free up our schedules, the Canal reports went off like crazy with 30 and even 40-pound bass eating mackerel like Tic Tacs.

Big fish or not, we still put our time in and banked experience at one of the most productive striper locales in the Northeast. We just have to keep going up there, do our homework and one of these years we'll hit it right. It's an awesome place to learn that's for sure.

Maiden Canal voyage for the new ZeeBaaS.

My ninja surf fishing bike in all her glory.

Derrick with the typical size bass that seemed to be around that night.

A 17-mile Striped Bass Super Highway

A view of the Sagamore Bridge from the mainland.

Poor Timing

Timing can be critical when it comes to fishing. In the weeks leading up to a recent Cape Cod trip, there were numerous reports of large striped bass gorging on mackerel in the Canal. In addition, the extensive flats of Cape Cod Bay were offering excellent sight-fishing opportunities for smaller stripers. Almost as if the fish were tipped off that we were coming, the bite shut off as soon as we crossed the Bourne Bridge. 

We planned a backyard camping stay with family only minutes from the "Big Ditch" and a short ride up Route 6 to good flats fishing. With our customized bikes, we pedaled up and down the Canal for two full nights and mornings. We bathed in bug spray, chugged Red Bull and retrieved hundreds of casts for one small bass between the three of us. During the day, we covered miles of flats despite a north wind and overcast skies that made sight-casting virtually impossible. We put a lot of eggs in one basket for this trip and were dealt a bad hand. With buckets of rain on the way, our sleep-deprived decision was made easier and we cut the trip one night short.

Poor timing or not, we had fun, gave it our best shot and gained valuable experience and knowledge about surf fishing the Canal and Bay-side flats.  Both fisheries are challenging and enjoyable in their own right and we still have a long way to go with each one. I didn't expect to waltz into epic action without donating some hours to the karma bank. Maybe next time.

Road Trip

One Jeep, two anglers, three sleepless nights, and 750-miles; that about sums up the Cape Cod binge that I'm still recovering from. Feeling ambitious, my fishing partner and I planned to hit three unique Cape fisheries: the fabled outer beaches, the expansive Bay-side flats and the striper superhighway that is the Canal. 

You can spend decades targeting and mastering these areas; we only had 72 hours. The prime window would have been early June, but a thing called life got in the way and late June it was. And while we gave each location the old college try, it was the 17-mile long Canal won over most of our time. 

Eel-skin plugs held prominent spots in our surf bags

We arrived to my aunt and uncle's house in Sandwich on Sunday evening to a grilled chicken dinner, which would be the start of an over-the-top showing of hospitality that would come our way during the trip. We pitched our tents in the backyard and hit a grocery store for the essentials, most notably Red Bull and Snickers bars. We were soon driving east on Route 6 to the famous striper hunting grounds of Truro and Provincetown.  We had a decent blow coming in from the southwest, so the outer beaches were pond-like and the Bay had the fishy surf conditions we all love. We hammered both sides and threw everything in the surf bags, but nothing more than the Cape staple, needlefish.  As good as the surf reports had been only two weeks prior, and as crazy as the off-shore action still is, the immediate area was devoid of life - no bait, no blues, and most importantly, no striped bass. As symbolic as those miles of sandy beaches are to surfcasting, we left with a bad taste in our mouths and decided to try something we've never done before - fish the Cape Cod Canal. There are several effective ways to pull quality striped bass from the Big Ditch, but it's mostly about personal preference, as they all take good fish at times.  Little did we know, we would soon learn years worth of knowledge in just a few days.

Pencil popping at first light is a Canal staple

We stepped foot on the rip rap of the Canal for first time during false dawn Monday morning.  There were anglers lining the banks on both sides every 50 yards, giving  us confidence we chose a good starting point. Everyone was throwing top-water plugs, the vast majority in green mackerel patterns.  Small bass were busting the surface out of casting range and terns were working overhead.  The anglers on the other side had a better crack and we could see a few being landed.  During the middle of one retrieve, Derrick pointed to my right and yelled, "Yo...fish...right there!"  I look over to see a large bass tail-slap a mackerel clear out of the water.  I flip a cast a mere 30 feet from my perch and had a bass smacked it twice, somehow avoiding two treble hooks each time.  Derrick's plug landed right behind mine and his pencil popper was instantly tail-slapped a few feet in the air.  Our next casts to the same area came up empty and two shots at a good fish had already slipped away.  With the sun getting higher, we soon retreated to headquarters and attempted to sleep in our already-hot tents.

After experiencing both the barren surf and the teaming Canal in the same night, we made the decision to focus more time on the latter.  We needed supplies and a basic primer that the articles we've read couldn't give.  We headed to a respected Canal shop, spent some coin and asked for some fresh intel.  A fellow behind the counter got wind that we were up from Connecticut.  It turns out he'd been on the Cape for the last 15 years, but had lived and fished hard in the Nutmeg State before that.  After BS'ing for an hour, he invited us to tag along with him later that night after his shift - jackpot!  We met Stan at the predetermined location around last light.  One glance at his set up and you could see he was a true Canal rat.  He had a classic Canal cruiser rigged with a PVC rod holder.  His conventional rod and reel were stout enough to tame a trophy bass in the Canal's strong currents.  His modest plug bag held only swimming plugs and few bucktail jigs.  Stan's preferred method of Canal fishing was to crawl plastic swimmers in the current, matching the mackerel and herring profiles perfectly.  Stan would soon prove its deadly effectiveness - over the next two nights, he landed a pile of fish, including one in the 40-pound class.     

'Stan the Man' with a nice striper caught on a hard-plastic swimmer

While giving us an extensive tour, Stan pointed out current seems and deep holes where stripers use the structure to their advantage.  He cut our learning curve incredibly and we owe him for the success that would soon follow.  Standing 20 yards apart tossing trusty Bombers, Derrick hooked up first and I followed suit only seconds later.  The fish on my line was bigger, but they all feel good in the current.  My drag was locked down and it was a stalemate for a brief period until I got the fish close enough to see me.  It wanted none of that and immediately peeled line, making me lose my footing in the process.  Derrick landed and released his keeper-sized bass and came over to lend a hand.  My first Canal striper was soon at my feet and we got a quick weight and photo before the release. 

My first striped bass from the Canal

Now it was D's turn. During a slow retrieve close to the bank, a huge fish inhaled his black Bomber and pushed an insane amount of water. This was unmistakably a very large striper and took him deep instantly. She had reached that size for a reason, and had no intentions of being subdued that night either.  After a blistering run, his line went slack and we all hung our heads. Under close inspection, his plug was mangled. A brand new VMC treble hook had been ripped clean off and the other was straightened out. A number of things could have went wrong, but the fish got the upper hand and we were all left to wonder just how big she really was.  Though that was a major blow, we kept at it knowing all to well there were some cows grazing that night.  A few more fish were landed and lost, but nothing anywhere close in size. We thanked Stan profusely and knew we'd see him again the next night at the same stretch. It was time for a three hour nap before the next portion of our trip: sight fishing the Bay-side flats.

  

We would have loved to see the bass that mangled Derrick's Bomber

It was last July when we got hooked on the flats. Sight fishing for cruising stripers in shallow water is a rush. Last year's cold wet spring prolonged the striper's stay in this area.  We were cautiously optimistic that we would find similar conditions, since we arrived a few weeks earlier this year.  With this kind of fishing, the sun is your friend, fog is your enemy and tide is the sneaky bastard you have to keep an eye on.  More than a few good surfcasters have lost their lives out there.  To give you an idea of how it works, we walk out over a mile into Cape Cod Bay with a dropping tide, fish hard until about an hour and a half into the low incoming tide, and walk back as it rises.  You have about a three hour window of fishing, longer if you have a kayak or a set of brass balls. 

Armed with 10-weight fly rods, intermediate lines and boxes full of sand eel and crab patterns, we pushed out with the ebbing tide.  The sun was still low and hiding behind passing clouds, which made sighting anything difficult.  There were no shortage of sand eels in the water, but there was a noticeable lack of crabs compared to last year.  When we reached the aqua green line of deeper water, we saw no fish, unlike our last trip when there were literally hundreds of darting gray shadows against the light sand.  We kept thinking it would pick up as the sun crept higher, improving our visibility.  A total of five stripers were seen and only a few casts were made.  Derrick had a good one follow his fly, but that was it.  The flats scene to me was a major part of this road trip and it was a bummer to get shut out.  Again it was not ideal timing; we missed the prime window by a few weeks, just like the outer beaches and the Canal.   

First light over Cape Cod Bay

We spent the remainder of the day relaxing, wolfing down seafood and tossing top-water plugs in the Canal.  Hope was still high for a repeat performance of the night before.  We arrived at last light again, only to find Stan smiling about a great bass he just let go.  If we had been there five minutes earlier, we could have snapped a quality photograph of him with a 40-pound striper - a small payment for him taking us under his wing.  Instead we looked at grainy cell phone pics of him wrestling the fish on the bank.  However, the sun hadn't fallen completely behind the tree line yet and a 40 was already released.  It was going to be an epic night - or so we thought.  Stan and his co-worker landed a few small bass and dropped some others.  D and I had some hits, one which slammed my Bomber, but they all got off.  After fishing an entire tide with nothing to show for it, we hit the tents and actually slept for more than three hours.  We took our time getting up and half-heartedly hit the Canal mid-morning before a goodbye brunch with our gracious hosts. 

This $6 RonZ soft-plastic was renered useless by bluefish teeth after just one drift

After a short three-night stay, we packed up the Jeep and crossed the Sagamore Bridge for the last time...at least for a few months.  We'll be back for some fall run action and hopefully our timing is a little better.  After driving over the Canal hundreds of times and reading about it for years, I'm glad we finally had the chance to scratch the surface on what could be a long love affair.  The Cape Cod Canal is to surfcasters today what the outer beaches were in the 50's, 60's and 70's.  These last few years in the Canal may very well be looked back on as the new 'glory days'.  Future generations may think of this period of Canal fishing as my generation does about the outer beach days of Woolner and Daignault.  Our crew is just at the tip of the iceberg with this fishery, but everyone has to start somewhere.  We were given a great starting point and now must put our time in.