Cape Cod Fishing Report - January 5, 2017

Until and unless the Cape Cod ponds freeze over, the fishing report isn’t going to change too much over the next few weeks. While there’s snow and cold coming this weekend, the temperature will be flirting with 50 degrees again by the middle of next week. The fishing is good, but fresh reports have been few and far between. Angler effort takes a serious dip this time of year, but the folks hitting the water are enjoying a great start to the 2017 Fishing Season.

Five days into the New Year, and I’ve caught a mix of pickerel, perch (both white and yellow), largemouth bass, and rainbow trout. The coming chill will most likely skim over the smaller bass ponds, but the trout ponds should stay open enough to fish this weekend. The rainbows are biting well on spoons and small jigs. Match your lure to the conditions.  Spoons work best when casting into a moderate or strong wind, and jigs work best in calm water. Inline spinners from 1/16 to 1/8-ounce also work well. Stickbaits can be great this time of year, especially for brown trout.

Fishermen are also seeking out their first stripers of the year. Some of the Cape’s many salt ponds and tidal creeks hold year-round resident populations of stripers, and as a general rule, the deeper into the bay or creek you go, the better your odds of finding holdover stripers. The fish are small, with the vast majority measuring less than 20 inches, so small jigs are best. The fish also stay glued to the bottom, and do not aggressively feed, so a slow retrieve is best.

If some shallow ponds stay open, the pickerel bite should stay good. My first fish on 2017 was a pickerel on the fly, but I followed it up with a 3-pound largemouth bass on a Rat-L-Trap. So the bass are still biting pretty well. Rat-L-Traps will be a good way to cover ground, but if they aren’t working, switch to a suspending jerkbaits, and fish it with long pauses.

Fishing Forecast for Cape Cod

The bigger ponds will be your better bet for open water with the upcoming cold. Trout will bite well, but bring a mix of lures to match the conditions and the mood of the fish.

If going on a holdover hunt, check the saltponds on a dropping tide when the falling water will concentrate fish into channels and holes.