Cape Cod Fishing Report - March 30, 2017

With the improvement in weather, more fishermen hit the water this week to take advantage of the excellent trout fishing.

The folks at the Sandwich Hatchery were busy again this week, reported AJ at Red Top Sporting Goods. AJ said this week’s batch of trout consisted mainly of browns. Brown trout are survivors, and any that don’t fall to a spinner, shiner, or nightcrawler in the coming weeks, will head for the depths, feeding on juvenile perch, smallmouth bass, and whatever else they can catch, growing to impressive sizes. My personal best holdover brown was a 25-inch, 5.5-pounder from Cliff Pond, but every year, 6-plus-pounders are taken around the Cape.

Browns don’t get that big by being easy to fool, however. They do have a weakness for gold-colored spoons and stickbaits with a bit of orange on them.

Jim at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle was excited about the big rainbows he’d heard of being caught this week. At Ashumet Pond—where no brown trout are stocked due to concerns over water quality—Jim had heard of several 2-pound rainbows taken on Thursday morning. Grews Pond also had some big ‘bows stocked as OTW’s Andy Nabreski, Eddy Stahowiak, and even my daughter, Maura, can attest.

The action around the trout ponds has been best at first and last light. I tried Thursday at lunch, in an area that was teeming with trout on Wednesday evening, and didn’t have a touch, nor did the other two anglers trying. Take advantage of the extra daylight after work, and focus your efforts then.

The crew from Macos Bait and Tackle said the saltwater action is still a little while off, and that there’s been no word of holdover stripers or white perch in the rivers.

Bass are biting well throughout the Cape. The small ponds are producing steady action and the larger ponds are beginning to wake up. The crayfish are moving around now as the water temperatures increase, so try hopping a jig and craw along the bottom. Jerkbaits, shallow-diving crankbaits, and lipless crankbaits are catching well in the smaller ponds, which are faster to warm up. There were multiple reports of 4- to 6-pound bass taken around the Cape since last Thursday.

The pickerel are biting well also. There have been some monsters taken in recent weeks. AJ at Red Top checked in two 5-pounders a couple weeks back, and I saw some posts on Facebook about pickerel “as long as your arm” being caught. Big pickerel will pounce on jigs and paddletail swimbaits, and the added benefit of these baits is the single hook that makes it easy to unhook the toothy pickerel. Shiners are great as well, and the bigger the better. Pickerel have huge mouths, and will have no problem taking down a meal that is almost half their own size. That’s why we love them.

Fishing Forecast for Cape Cod

The weekend looks wonderful for some spring freshwater action. Target trout in the low-light hours, and switch over to bass and pickerel when the sun is high and the water warms up a couple degrees.