Bonito Bar Basics

If you want to have some fun on Nantucket this summer, swing by the Bonito Bar. They don’t sell drinks there, but the fishing is awesome.

This sandbar forms about a quarter mile off the beach at Madaket and earned its name from the large numbers of Atlantic bonito that gather there from late July into September.

The Bonito Bar fishes best on the rising tide. At low tide, just when the current is starting to move in, huge schools of baitfish congregate on the Bar, and these baitfish attract big numbers of gamefish. On calm days, there is so much bait on the surface that you can hear a hissing sound, almost as if someone has dumped a giant Alka Seltzer into the water. The baitfish, mostly sand eels, are so thick, that it’s common to snag them while reeling in at the end of the cast.

To best fish the bar, anchor up just beyond the edge of the breaking waves and cast to the structure. This should place the boat in 15 to 20 feet of water. A good anchor with lots of rode is a must in order to safely fish in this way. An occasional big roller will come through on rougher days, so anchoring off the stern is not a good idea. Not anchoring up at all and getting too close to the breakers has ruined many boats.

When targeting the Bar’s namesake species, the best lures are small swimming plugs like the Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow. Personally, I prefer metal lures like the Deadly Dick or Swedish Pimple, both with green holographic tape on the sides. Metal casts well and the single hook makes it easier to unhook the fish. Bonito bleed profusely from small face cuts, so the fewer hooks the better, especially if you are releasing the fish. That said, a good day of fishing at the Bonito Bar usually leaves my boat pretty dirty, no matter what lure I use.

Trolling along the outer edge of the Bar will produce fish as well. Small swimming plugs in blue, green, yellow and white seem to work best. On weekends, however, there will be so many boats anchored up that trolling will not be an option.

When I get to the Bonito Bar and start casting, if I have no action after a half hour or so, I will move a couple of hundred yards, and many times, that move has helped me find the fish. Some days there are so many boats lined up that you have to take what spots are available. On many days, the fish are moving back and forth along the length of the bar, and your boat’s position does not matter.

I was fishing the Bonito Bar on August 20, 2012 with my longtime fishing buddy, Dr. Jon Pilcher, on his boat the TunanuT. There was only one open spot for us on the Bonito Bar, but that didn’t matter as we quickly caught two 6- to 7-pound bonito. We were the second-to-last boat in a string of 30 boats or more. A little later that day, I hooked something that fought even harder than the bonito, and before long, I was holding the first Nantucket false albacore of the season. I have never caught the first bluefish or striper of the year on Nantucket, but this marked the second time in three years that I was the first person on the island to catch a false albacore. It was all luck, but I’ll take it. Most years, the albies don’t show up until September.

While this structure is named for bonito, there are many other species that feed there. False albacore and bluefish are two of the more common visitors. Often when the albies arrive in numbers in the fall, the bonito thin out a bit. While filming an episode for the second season of On The Water TV, the hosts and I showcased not only the great bonito fishing at Bonito Bar, but the variety of species that feed along this structure.

It was mid-August, prime time for bonito, and the conditions were as perfect as they ever get—glass-calm waters, beautiful clear skies and a rising tide that kicked into gear at around 1:30 in the afternoon. In no time, host Jay Baver hooked his first bonito ever. This bone gave him everything it had and more, and he was really whooping it up and enjoying the battle. Jay landed that fish, a beautiful 10-pounder, and another almost that big, before I had even hooked up. It was almost two hours into filming before I finally caught a bonito. It would be followed quickly by three more—no 10 pounders, but I could finally relax after catching a fish on camera.

Later in the day, we took a strip of meat off the tail of that first fish, and put it on a fish-finder rig off the stern of the boat. With this rig, we caught a small brown shark, a huge sand shark and a striped bass. We also caught a few bluefish mixed in with the bonito, and the crew on the camera boat took a few casts and topped the day off with not one, but two 20- to 25-pound bluefin tuna. Bluefin are a rare catch for so close to shore, but then again, you never know what might stop by for a bite at the Bonito Bar.