Cape Cod Fishing Report - April 16, 2020

The fresh stripers arrived after the strong south winds early in the week. The first reports came from the Vineyard, where Stavros Viglas and Joe Uva enjoyed welcoming the stripers back. Small jigs were the bait of choice.

Nathan from Red Top reported that on the Cape, it was just holdovers for now, but with the bait stacking up and the fresh fish on the Vineyard, it should just be a matter of days before the striper fishing improves.

Red Top has been selling plenty of green crabs, but has heard relatively little about keeper tog being caught. Nathan expects the tog fishing to open up over the next few days.

Haddock fishing opened up north of the Cape on Wednesday, and OTW’s Chris Megan was there to enjoy it. He came home with just shy of a limit of these great-eating groundfish. It took a few spots, and many miles of riding, to find them, but the haddock were there and hungry for clam-baited high-low rigs.

Freshwater is still going strong. Smallmouth are moving shallower and biting well on jerkbaits and jigs. Largemouth continue to hit a variety of lures, with jigs and shallow cranks working best as the water warms. I’ve been trying big swimbaits, with nary a bite this week, but I’m sticking with it in the hopes that when I do get that bite, it’ll be a big one.

Pickerel continue to feed well and the trout fishing is excellent.

Fishing Forecast for Cape Cod

Seek out the warmest saltwater around as that’s where you’ll have the best chance of finding fresh stripers, or at least active holdovers. This means afternoon outgoing tides deep in the bays and salt ponds. Small jigs will be best, and consider crushing the barbs to help these schoolies survive. While some “keeper-sized” fish may be milling around, the vast majority of these early arrivals will be well short of the slot limit.

And before switching fully to salt, take some last casts at the ponds, where the bass fishing is excellent. The biggest largemouths of the year are being caught right now. Red Top heard of a 7.9-pounder taken from Plymouth this week, and anglers around the Cape are reporting 5s and 6s. None for me though, but I did manage a 4.5-pounder on a live shiner, before the windstorm knocked out my electricity just long enough to kill off all the shiners in my tank (hence my switch to swimbait fishing).

As the stripers arrive, you’ll find even more open space on the trout ponds, which is even more important this season than in season’s past.

On that note, when fishing for stripers, avoid crowds and maintain social distance, if not for your health and the health of other fishermen, then do it so that fishing at our favorite places can remain open throughout this pandemic. New Jersey has closed all parks, which is cutting shore fishermen off from some of the best striper spots down there. We definitely don’t want that to happen here, so let’s not give the state or the towns any excuse to shut us down.