Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay Fishing Report 5-3-2012

Lunker Largemouths and Schoolie Stripers Continue to Bite

With the full moon this weekend, there is some great fishing building up. Freshwater remains strong while saltwater continues to improve. There’s no better month to catch a variety of species than May, so if you’re looking for a mixed bag of species, carve out some time to fish this weekend.

Big largemouth bass are still being caught according to Tom at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay. Many of the bass are on their spawning beds, which means they won’t be doing too much feeding, but they will aggressively strike objects that they feel pose a threat to their nest. Soft-plastic lizards are one of the favorites at this time of year since the theory is that salamanders eat largemouth eggs. Roy Leyva at Riverview Bait and Tackle heard of an 8-pound, 8-ounce bucketmouth caught on the Cape this week. The behemoth bass hit a large swimbait. Swimbaits are a low-percentage, but high reward bait. If you stick with them, you might go days or weeks without a bite, but when you get hit, most often it will be a quality fish.

Believe it or not, that 8-pounder wasn’t the biggest bass caught around here this week. When I called M and D’s Mike had just weighed in a 10-pound, 6-ounce largemouth bass, most likely the biggest caught in the state so far this year. The monster fish was kept alive through the weigh-in process and released in good health. Now that is the fish of a lifetime.

Smallmouths are also still striking lures. Chris Megan and I hit a deep, clear pond on the Mid-Cape looking for smallies this week and connected with a few very nice fish. Tube jigs (with a non-lead jighead) were the lures of choice. While we did see some fish on spawning beds, others seemed to be cruising.

Trout fishing is excellent as well. Tom at Red Top said the Thomas Buoyants spoons have been hot lately. Dan at the Hook Up in Orleans reported good trout fishing toward his end of the Cape as well. He weighed in a 3-pound brook trout this week. The big brookie came from Sheeps Pond.

Squid fishing has been hot and cold. The usual haunts in Hyannis, Chatham and Woods Hole are giving up some calamari on a nightly basis, but the numbers have varied quite a bit from night to night. Anglers heading out on a boat during the day in the Cotuit to Hyannis area are catching some squid as well.

Blackfishing is still very good. A 13-pounder and a 12-pounder were taken this week. Tom at Red Top said more big tog have moved in over the past week.

Scup season opened on May 1 and they are already around in big numbers in Vineyard Sound and in parts of lower Buzzards Bay.

Black sea bass, though out of season currently (sea bass season opens on 5/11), are being caught incidentally in Buzzards Bay. Captain Terry Nugent has caught a few extremely large sea bass while looking for stripers. Terry found the striped bass on Thursday in Buzzards Bay. The stripers ranged from schoolies to 37-inchers and were feeding on the surface under birds.

Cape Cod Bay was the striper hotspot for most of the week, with fish into the low 30-inch range making up most of the catch. Anglers found success with minnow plugs and small soft plastics. Barnstable Harbor is loaded with mackerel and stripers up to 40 inches Roy at Riverview said. Sunken Meadow has been another hotspot. Tom at Red Top and Dan at the Hook Up both mentioned it in their reports, and both had heard of keepers being caught there. Dan said the schoolie spots at the mid-Cape have had lots of anglers trying their luck for the small stripers.

The Herring Run in the Canal is loaded with herring and, during the day, finicky stripers. Anglers are having better luck fishing after the sun sets when the bass are a little less particular about what lures they’ll hit. The stripers in the canal have been smaller keepers in the 28- to 32-inch range. There have been a few larger fish, but at the moment, these seem to be few and far between.

Mike at M and D’s predicts we’re still 2 weeks away from the first big push of big stripers. He says when the fish make their move, Canal anglers had better be ready with large Swim Shads, Daiwa SP Minnows, Cotton Cordell Pencil Poppers and Sebile Magic Swimmers and Stick Shadds. Mike is expecting one big push of fish rather than the two separate schools that moved through last year a couple weeks apart.

Though no one mentioned it in my phone calls, there were a few bluefish taken on the Cape this week. Andy Nabreski saw one slammer blue taken on mackerel chunks on a South Side beach. Roy Leyva expects the bluefish bite to really turn on when the wind goes southwest once again. The current forecast, however, has lots of northerly winds predicted. There may be a window on Friday or early next week, but typically the best south-side bluefish bites take place when the southwest wind has been blowing at a good clip for a day or two.

Big mackerel are being caught around Race Point reported Tom at Red Top. The mackerel fishing around the East End of the Canal has been spotty, but the bit toward the Race has been pretty consistent.

Fishing Forecast for the Weekend

In case you didn’t know, the May Full Moon is known as the “Milk Moon.” Could it be because that’s when the “cow” stripers come back to their summer haunts in New England? Probably not, but it’s still worth doing some striper fishing this weekend. School-sized fish to 32 inches or so are abundant. Lures are working well, but with all the squid around, using some fresh cephalopod baits should score as well. For location, the Cape Cod bayside had the best reports again this week, but anglers are finding stripers on the South Side and throughout the Canal as well.

That double-digit largemouth weighed at M and D’s has certainly inspired me to put my bassin’ gear back in the truck – if only for the weekend. The big largemouths will be in the shallows as they prepare to spawn.

The weather has stayed cool enough to keep the trout bite going strong, but the curtain may be falling on this fishery in the next couple of weeks, so if you want to do battle with a few more rainbows, browns or brookies on your ultra-light gear, get out there this weekend. The bigger ponds like Peter’s, Cliff or Sheeps would be my pick, mostly because they get the most generous stockings.

Bottom fishing for tog will be good this weekend. Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound will be the places. Look for wrecks and rockpiles. Do some scouting with your electronics or a chart to find an out of the way piece of structure that other anglers might overlook. Or anchor up over a large piece of structure like Cleveland Ledge that will hold plenty of blackfish despite heavy fishing pressure.