Cape Cod Fishing Report
As the music mogul and unbearable media personality, DJ Khaled, would say… “Anotha one”.
Indeed, it was yet another tough week on the water around Cape Cod. Even during the somewhat mild weekend weather we had, finding a place to tuck out of the wind and put together a bite proved very difficult. And to my surprise, several lakes and ponds that I assumed would be open still had skim ice. At 3 or 4 locations, there was just barely enough ice to make shore fishing impossible. There are few things as deflating as pulling up to a body of water you planned to fish, only to find it’s still frozen despite 40-degree air temps. And having it happen 3 times over is not only a waste of precious fishing time, but a waste of gas, too. Finally though, I located some open water and got to casting.
On Saturday, the fishing was very challenging. A few shallow ponds were thawed enough to wet a line, but finding any fish willing to bite was the second task after discovering open water. After fruitlessly throwing jerkbaits, hair jigs, ned rigs, spoons and spinners, I tied on a new 3-inch soft-plastic swimbait that would change the game for the rest of the weekend. Rapala’s new Crush City “The Mayor” swimbait, rigged on a 3/8-ounce YUM jighead was the only thing to get bit in all the hours I spent fishing.
A jumbo chain pickerel in a herring run pond was the first taker. After some prolonged sunlight, bass and pickerel will typically start to move a bit shallow in search of a meal, but this pickerel was holding along a weed line that borders a drop-off into a deep pocket of the lake. A cast and a 3-count to let The Mayor swimbait sink got it into the strike zone, where the paddletail just-barely ticked the tops of the weeds on the retrieve. At 3 inches with a narrow profile, The Mayor is a finesse-style swimbait that is highlighted by its unique swimming action. The paddletail kicks well, as any standard soft-plastic swimbait should, but it is the slight wobble of the lure’s body that gives it such a realistic swimming action, even as it falls through the water column. This pickerel took the swimbait on the drop, and while I didn’t measure it, it probably would have taped out around 23 inches or more. The head was huge, but its body was long and slender. In the coming weeks, as pickerel begin to put on the feed bag before they spawn in late March, they’ll be chewing more aggressively and moving into shallow, grassy areas in protected coves and bays.
Sunday was another sunny day, although the gusty north/northwest winds made the fishing tough once again. My buddy Jack joined me for a couple hours of fishing on Sunday morning, and after I skunked at spot number one, we decided to try a bog pond that would allow us to fish with the wind at our backs. The water was a dark brown tannic color, so Jack and I tied on small, bright-colored soft plastics in hopes of finding some yellow perch schooled up, if nothing else. After a few casts, we located a school of largemouth bass that were surprisingly fired up and rather chunky. I tied into the first bass on the same Crush City Mayor swimbait, then Jack caught a small one about 10 yards to my left. We played leap-frog along the shoreline to try and stay with the school, but they quickly caught on to our presence in this tiny body of water.
For a few more minutes we tossed around small paddletails trying to stay with the bass, and right before we were about to pack it in, Jack tied into a much better fish. He was throwing a 1.5-inch paddletail designed for crappie—the 6th Sense Fishing Pecos Underspin. In the dark, murky bog water, the small Colorado-style blade that spins beneath the paddletail does a stellar job of reflecting sunlight, and was likely what drew a strike from the biggest bass of the morning.
After Jack pulled this fish from the school, they shut down completely and we bounced to another bog neither of us had fished before. There, we got first-cast-cursed when I pulled in a tiny, overzealous 6-inch bass on the Mayor swimbait. Still, we were happy to have discovered there were fish in this bog at all. Sometimes, winter fishing is more about scouting and unlocking new spots for the spring and summer months than it is about catching biggins.
Aside from bass and pickerel, trout fishing has been pretty reliable in the kettle ponds, although the fish seem to be a bit more sluggish and are usually hugging bottom. Fishing live shiners, nightcrawlers or a ball of PowerBait on a lightweight bottom rig is probably the best way to find fish right now. Trout are coldwater fish, so they’ll still feed actively in the winter rather than going almost dormant like largemouth bass; it’s just a matter of finding a school of them, or better yet, finding a school of small baitfish like yellow perch or bluegills. A few weeks back, Jack and I were fishing an outer Cape kettle pond and found browns chewing our live shiners strictly on bottom in around 12 feet of water. After we brought in a few browns, we noticed they were spitting up juvenile bluegills that were clearly schooled up around some vegetation over muddy bottom.
This Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., On The Water will be releasing a new YouTube video that I shot and edited from that morning of trout fishing with Jack. We had good action before our camera batteries died in the cold temperatures, but the video may provide some insight into how to produce a bite and pass the time on the ponds for the remainder of the winter.
Up until Tuesday’s blizzard, shore fishing was much more feasible. Jack got out for trout with some live shiners on Monday night, anticipating that fish would be looking to feed with the change in barometric pressure as the storm approached. But no dice.
As the snow slowly melts off, the ponds are going to stay cold, so plan your outings around stretches of mild weather when possible.
Connor at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay said Wednesday was a busy day at the shop for guys coming by to pick up hooks and terminal tackle in anticipation of striper season already. They usually see a rush of anglers who are doing some preseason tackle tinkering before spring weather arrives, and that rush was amplified by the dumping of snow on Tuesday. The fishing, he said, has been slow, aside from the silver lining in this week’s report: sea herring and mackerel fishermen are catching pollock in the Canal from 20 to 32 inches, which is far larger than the typical juvenile pollock that are frequently caught alongside mackerel and herring. They’re catching on standard sabiki rigs with slightly larger than normal diamond jigs in order to weigh down their rigs and present the pollock a larger bait. Connor said the shop is starting to receive spring shipments of lures from brands like JoeBaggs and Madd Mantis, and several custom plug builders in addition to boosting their inventory of slow-pitch jigs. Swing by the shop this weekend and check out the selection, or scoop up some diamond jigs and hit the Canal. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write mid-winter).
Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth said things have been slow around the shop with the winter weather we had this week. He just got some fresh shiners in from small up to medium-large size, and nightcrawlers are re-stocked for the weekend fishing crowd too. Evan said shellfishing gear is still the main draw though. Yesterday he sold 3 pairs of waders, a rake, baskets and gloves, and he’s had the occasional customer looking for shiners, but that should change as March approaches and people look to get out fishing in the ponds on the warmer days.
Lee at Riverview Bait and Tackle in South Yarmouth reported that he had a fair amount of guys in the shop last weekend who were going out for trout and bass with live shiners. One customer called asking about safe ice on the Cape, to which he sternly deterred them from trying in the interest of their own safety. With the high sun from here on out, and all this wind we’ve been getting, the ponds never had a chance to settle with safe ice. If you’re planning to get out fishing at all, look for open water, or head north to find safe ice. Other than a few trout and bass fishermen, Lee said that shellfishing gear is still selling well for the non-fishing crowd.
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Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
If only I weren’t going skiing this weekend. I know where I’d be spending, and possibly wasting my time, but for good reason: the Cape Cod Canal. The weekend weather looks brisk and blustery, but this winter has seen some great pollock fishing in the northeast. To hear of big pollock coming into the Canal is very exciting. Usually, small ones are caught in the East End in the early spring, but if there are big baits around, there could be some quality action at the ditch this weekend. Of course, the bite is tide dependent, but it sounds like the better fishing has been happening when the sun is high in the sky. Even if you try pollock fishing and come away empty handed, or with a couple of mackerel and sea herring, it’s fun to change up the winter fishing approach. Dust off the surf rods and get down there to survey the scene, if nothing else.
Even with the potential for pollock, the best bet for action over the next week is going to be in the ponds. Pickerel usually spawn in the middle to end of March depending on water temperatures, but they’ll be looking to eat in the weeks leading up to the spawn. Bass fishing is a close second to pickerel fishing, although they are not quite as active. Instead, pick up some live baits, roll up some PowerBait dough, and toss out a couple of bottom rigs in your favorite kettle pond. If the action is slow, pick up and move. Look for muddy bottom with some slight vegetation between 6 and 15 feet of water, as these areas are more likely be holding some small panfish or other baitfish.
Thanks for reading, stay safe (and warm) out there, and fish hard this week.
(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.)