Cape Cod Fishing Report
Well, we may not have seen skim ice on Cape Cod’s ponds this week, but winds ranging from 15 to 50 m.p.h. did not make fishing any easier. Instead of searching for ponds with pockets of open water, freshwater anglers were forced to find areas where they could duck out of the wind to have any chance at a productive outing. Even with the wind at my back, the fishing was tough this week, and I skunked on most occasions.
I didn’t catch a thing at my local trout pond the other day, but I tried again the following morning with OTW’s Nick Cancelliere, who was visiting from Long Island this week. As we approached the water, trout were rising somewhat aggressively within casting range, so we thought we were in for a great pre-work outing. An hour later, and many casts with jerkbaits, spoons, soft plastics and hair jigs, Nick and I headed for the office without even a nibble.
(If you’d like to contribute to our weekly fishing reports this winter, email me at mhaeffner@onthewater.com with a brief report of your day on the water and what you caught, or message me on Instagram @matthaeffner.)
Aside from those two outings, there wasn’t much time to fish this week. Today is the shortest day of the year (as far as daylight goes), and as is typical of the holiday season, life outside of work can get pretty hectic. Still, it’s important to cut out time for yourself this time of year. Sometimes, that means skipping a sandwich and taking an hour at lunch to stand in a cold, herring-run pond in your leaky waders, relentlessly casting spoons in the wind. So today, that’s what I did.
I took a little drive out of town, leaving myself only 30 minutes to fish. The weapon of choice was my trout rod, a light Fenwick Eagle with moderate-fast action, with a 1/4-ounce gold Kastmaster tied to 6-pound line. I fished the lee side of the pond so my spoon got some extra casting distance and I could minimize the bow in my line. After only a few casts, I hooked something decent. The fun of fishing this pond in the cold is rolling the dice between largemouth bass and chain pickerel, so I didn’t know what it was until I saw a nearly 2-pound largemouth flash its broad side in the sun’s reflection.
A few casts later, I hooked another bass toward the end of my retrieve. Surprisingly, the bass were not staged in the deeper area of the pond where I was casting to. Instead, they were hanging in shallow, sunning themselves over the dying weed beds on the flats toward the back of the pond. The next one whacked the spoon pretty hard and ended up pinned way back on the roof of the mouth. But, in most cases, the bass were barely tapping the lure, so they were typically hooked on the outside of the jaw or just barely pinned on the lip.
I finished with 5 bass in 30 minutes, but not without a couple pickerel—one of which was very large—crashing the party. One fish would have been satisfying, 5 bass and a gator pickerel was more than I could have hoped for.
The point in sharing this little lunchtime outing is that there is productive fishing in our ponds, even when the wind is blowing, the air is cold, and our schedules are busy (or you’ve skunked all week, like me). Sometimes, a 30-minute window is all you need. It might be tougher to find 30 minutes for fishing this weekend, but that’s one of the many reasons to keep one or two rods rigged and ready in the car at all times. A quick little bite like this one can leave you feeling refreshed and accomplished.
As I headed for the truck, I thought to myself, “I wonder what my last fish of the year will be? And I wonder what everyone else is catching this week? I can’t be the only one thinking about what I want my final fish of 2023 to be.” So when I called a couple of our local tackle shops, I asked everyone: If you could only catch one more fish before the new year, what would it be?
When I spoke to Connor at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay, he told me that not much has changed since last week’s report on account of the wind and lack of people fishing. They’ve had a few freshwater guys coming in here and there, mostly for largemouth bass gear. Connor said that mackerel are still in the Canal, and they’re particularly large. Shop employee and Canal regular, Bull, was jigging metals for bass in the East End and was catching big, horse mackerel from 1 to 1-1/4 pounds. He said they’re still in thick, and the best way to catch them is with a sabiki rig. When I asked Connor what he’d like his final fish of the year to be, he did not hesitate. “Striper, 1000%.” He plans to target winter holdovers this weekend, so we’ll see if his wish comes to fruition.
Evan Eastman over at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth said it’s been quiet aside from a few people still coming in for shellfishing gear. Evan said the shop will be open until New Years, but they’ll be closed for the month of January. His response to my question about the ideal last fish of the year: “I mean, I’d love to catch an overslot striped bass on light tackle, but in the current environment, I suppose a big largemouth bass would do.”
Amy at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis said there hasn’t been much interest in fishing this week, but they’ve been busy with Christmas sales and unpacking new inventory, including a ton of new freshwater lures from Savage Gear. They’re still selling shiners and nightcrawlers to trout anglers, but not much has changed since last week. I asked Amy what her last fish of 2023 would be in a perfect world (within reason), and she said “A big brown trout at night would be great.” Ditto Amy.
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Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
The weather forecast up until next Thursday looks more mild than the past 2 weeks have been, so there should be some good fishing for bass and pickerel in the ponds. If the wind lays down a bit, trout fishing should be equally as reliable. It’s just flat-out difficult to cast lightweight lures for finicky rainbows in high winds. Last year, my final fish of the year was a pancake of a rainbow trout that had been fattening up on juvenile river herring. As a matter of fact, the last few days of the year brought outstanding trout fishing, and I shared the bite with OTW’s Adam Eldridge and Jimmy Fee. You can read about that outing here.
On December 31 of 2021, Jimmy Fee and I jigged up some smallies in Mashpee-Wakeby Pond from our kayaks. The 3-pound-plus smalljaw I caught that day stuck with me as a pretty memorable last-of-the-year catch, mainly because we were fishing blind (without electronics).
If you haven’t already, start thinking about what you want your last fish of the year to be. It could be a trout, bass, perch, pickerel or crappie, or if you’re lucky and hunting hard enough, a striped bass. We’ll check in again next week before the New Year.
Thanks for reading along; may your lines be tight, and may you and your families have a very Merry Christmas.
(If you’d like to contribute to our weekly fishing reports this winter, email me at mhaeffner@onthewater.com with a brief report of your day on the water and what you caught, or message me on Instagram @matthaeffner.)