The saltwater fishing has wound down on the Cape. Fishermen are left fishing for tog or the last few schoolies trickling through Cape Cod waters (some of which may end up spending the winter in our bays). Bluefin tuna are still around in good numbers, but the weather has made it difficult for boats to reach them.
AJ at Red Top Sporting Goods said that many fishermen have hung up the saltwater gear. The remaining diehards have been doing well with blackfish and schoolie bass. Freshwater fishing has been very good—as it has been all fall, though few fishermen were checking. AJ heard rumors of an 8-pound largemouth taken this week. He also heard that the trout fishing has been very good.
Jeff at Canal Bait and Tackle said that most fishermen weren’t willing to deal with the cold and rain for schoolie stripers, especially after such a great striper season.
On Martha’s Vineyard, Coop said that the albies finally split with the cold snap last weekend, and that bass and blues were getting scarce. Tog fishing is very good around the Vineyard, and mackerel have been moving through as well.
Fishing Forecast for Cape Cod
This time of year, fresh intel starts getting scarce, but rest assured there are plenty of fishing opportunities remaining around the Cape. If you haven’t had your fill of stripers yet, you can find them along the Cape Cod Bay beaches, in the South Side bays and harbors, and probably even a few stragglers in the Canal. The largemouth bass bite is very good. I caught a baker’s dozen before work this morning on a Rat-L-Trap. Like stripers, the largemouths take the long, cold nights as a cue to fatten up for winter. They will often group up, and you can catch a number out of one spot by throwing reaction baits like lipless crankbaits and jerkbaits.
Smallmouth are still shallow, and haven’t retreated to the deepwater humps where they will spend the winter.
Pickerel fishing is especially good this time of year as the weeds start to retreat and they go on the prowl. The same baits that work for largemouths will work for pickerel, but if you’d rather not deal with trebles and the pickerel’s mouth full of teeth, try a paddle-tail plastic or a single-hook inline spinner.
Tog are still biting as well, and while the shallow structures may have been picked over, you’re likely to find good-sized tog on deeper structures in the 40- to 80-foot range. Tog will move offshore to ride out the winter, and if you have the numbers on some deep wrecks, you could be in for some fantastic tog fishing.
Just got back from long trip. Did I miss the big girls going thru canal?
I dont follow the advise of these reports but i do love reading em to get a little pump up but let me say that the season is dying down but you wont say that if your fishing scusset beach or sagamore beach ….last sunday around 3 pm i went thru rounds of blitzing fish and nailed a 32 inch keeper as well as over 10 schoolies with top water plugs and im nailing fish almost on every visit ….i took wednesday off to repeat the action at scusset and the ocean was mad and wind blowing over 20mph blew me off the beach in 10 minutes but i was watching the seagulls working along the shore line and saw a couple splashes but the condition was extremely poor even with waders on i couldnt connect with them and this is a november spot to keep getting em ……i will be back over the weekend if winds can sustain . Still getting keepers but nothing over 33 inches in last 3 weeks . Go get em ! Go saturday morning around 6am catch the dead low and fish it all the way to high tide and i bet you will nail into some keepers or schoolies ….hasnt slowed down in my eyes ….best is around 3pm no matter the tide
Definitely hasn’t slowed down in that area, just smaller fish!! Border line keepers was the biggest I been getting but over 20 micros almost every trip. I’ll take that all day this time of year.
Tight lines bud ??
Much appreciated Mark! Tight lines!