Above: Stavros Viglas caught this striped bass on Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday during this lunch break.
Fishing for trout and largemouth is still very good, but most fishermen will be throwing their freshwater fishing plans on the backburner after hearing that the first migratory striper was taken on Cape Cod. Well, on Martha’s Vineyard.
Stavros Viglas was making a few lunchtime casts on an ocean-facing beach on Thursday and connected with a bass that he says “wasn’t crawling with sea lice,” but had a few on its flanks.
That’s right on time with the usual first appearance of striped bass on Martha’s Vineyard, which, over the last 10 years, seems to fall between April 13 and April 20.
Stavros caught the fish on a white bucktail jig.
In other saltwater news, OTW’s Adam Eldridge caught his first tog of the season, also on his lunch break on Thursday. Adam had been keeping a check on his favorite rockpiles for over a week now, and while he’d been getting a few “scratchy” bites, it seemed like the water temperature had not yet gotten warm enough for the tog to really want to eat…until today.
So, the saltwater season has begun on Cape Cod!
Herring are flooding the runs, and while it won’t be long before some stripers are on the saltwater end of those runs, currently the best herring-fueled action is in freshwater.
The largemouth bass fishing seemed to break open this week, with large bass being caught on big baits both at night, and during the day. Smallmouth have also been moving shallower as the ponds warm, and fishermen are catching them on a mix of jigs and jerkbaits.
The best smallmouth ponds tend to be larger and deeper than the small bog ponds that largemouth typically favor. Many of my favorite smallie waters are stocked with trout, and some of my most exciting catches are when a 3-pound smallie grabs a spoon cast out for trout on my ultralight.
Smallmouth are suckers for suspending jerkbaits, and will rocket out of relatively deep water to smash a jerkbait hovering a few feet below the surface.
Want to get in on the bite? Find an OTW-approved Charter Fishing Captain for Cape Cod.
The largemouth right now can be taken on a variety of presentations. Some of my favorites for springtime are spinnerbaits and squarebill crankbaits. Jigs are excellent as well, and you can rarely go wrong with a wacky-rigged Senko.
The tiger trout were stocked into a few ponds this week. These striking hybrids of the brook and brown trout are always fun to catch and photograph. And the broodstock trout should be going in soon. The state often coordinates the stocking of the largest trout of the season with the spring school vacation, so look for some XL brown trout to be cruising your favorite trout pond soon.
Fishing Forecast for Cape Cod
In the next week or so, someone is going to catch the first fresh striper on Cape Cod (besides the Vineyard). If you’re hoping it will be you, your best bet resides on a south-facing beach, or at the entrance to a harbor or salt pond. Small soft plastics are a great choice for the first arriving stripers. And in celebration of the striper’s arrival, here’s one of my favorite videos from the OTW Library:
It’s also a good time to speak up for striped bass by submitting your comment to the ASMFC about how you’d like striped bass to be managed. Read more about that here: Speak Up TODAY on Striped Bass Management – On The Water
Monday, 18th about 200-250 yds off south facing beach near Dennisport, HUGE mess of birds feeding. We watched them for 15-20 minutes and were still going crazy. I think every bird on the Cape was there. never saw such a frenzy. It was about 3 PM, I think about 2-3 hours after high tide in the area.