Cape Cod Fishing Report- March 14, 2024

Cape Cod Fishing Report

Fishy things are happening. And by things, I mean each day there are new signs of spring in the air and in the water.

As nice as it may be to spend winters down south in Florida or the Carolinas, this is arguably the best time of year to be a true northeasterner. The budding trees and plants, the longer, warmer days, the impending arrival of ospreys and herring, trout being stocked, and the ponds coming to life before stripers return— they are all rewards for enduring another northeast winter.
 
Late last week, reports of herring in Rhode Island and portions of the south coast of Massachusetts made their way to anglers on the Cape. I heard of scattered schools of scout herring in places as close as Wareham, but I’ve yet to see any in our local rivers. One night earlier this week, I headed to the Quashnet and Coonamesset Rivers in hopes of discovering some herring. No scouts yet, but I did notice small groups of minnows in the rivers, which is more bait than I’ve seen in shallow water all winter. That was enough for me to buckle up the waders, tie on a wake bait, and march into a local bog pond that is connected to a herring run.

As I trudged in, more minnows, and what looked to be some juvenile largemouth, scattered from the shallow cover of overhanging branches and weeds. A promising sign. I even spotted a handful of bluegills sitting over sandy patches of bottom around my ankles.

It was glass calm, and the peepers that I heard chirping earlier in the evening had stopped singing their spring songs. For a few minutes, it seemed like the pond was going to be dead despite how much bait I was seeing. Then, the unmistakable slurp of a bass interrupted the eerie stillness, my line jolted, and a few moments later, a dinky largemouth was in my grasp. The first “topwater” fish of the year was a small one and left much to be desired.

About 30 minutes later, I swapped to a 3/4-ounce FishLab Bio-Shad wakebait and another fish took the jointed wakebait as it crept over a channel lined by tall grasses. It was a long and skinny 3-pound class fish, which lifted my spirits.

After the commotion caused by the second fish, the action died off for another 30 minutes or so. Before packing it up for the night, I tied on the original wakebait that landed the first small bass and managed to hook into one more quality largemouth. This one had a gut and had clearly been eating well.

Few things get the heart racing like a wakebait being suddenly inhaled toward the end of a retrieve on a dark, glassy pond. It’s a great way to get the juices flowing for early-season striper fishing in the estuaries that happens about a month from now.

OTW’s Anthony DeiCicchi and Matt Ryan also capitalized on the nighttime bass bite that kicked off this week by splashing the Bass Raider in another herring run pond. They fished wakebaits and swimbaits for several hours last night, with Matt landing a small bass on a jointed wake and Anthony tying into a 5-pound class fish on a Pat’s perch-patterned swimbait. They stuck both of their fish on back to back casts in the same spot after a few fish-less hours.

Can we proclaim this the official start of the pre-spawn largemouth bass season? I think so.

And largemouth bass aren’t the only ones on the prowl these days. Smallmouth bass are beginning to put on the feed bag too. Over the weekend, OTW’s Robbie Tartaglia discovered a lights-out jig bite in a small kettle pond on the other side of the big ditch. He and his friend had smallies to 2 pounds aggressively swiping at finesse jigs, which is arguably more exciting than nighttime fishing for largemouth.

Many bass fisherman agree that pound for pound, smallmouth bass fight harder than largemouth bass. With the right tackle, a good daytime smallie bite is hard to beat. And while the smalljaws may not be as active in larger kettle lakes just yet—or at least not readily available from shore—there are other angling opportunities to be had in the kettle lakes.

Trout stocking continued around Cape Cod over the past week. The kettle ponds are currently loaded with brown, brook, rainbow and tiger trout. Last night, after an unsuccessful wakebait mission, I soaked some shiners with my buddy Jack and his friend Cam at a kettle pond in Falmouth. The action started slow, but after a little while we had finicky fish chasing down our shiners in knee-deep water. Jack and I each hooked and dropped a trout, and Cam landed a couple of pesky yellow perch. The highlight of the night was when an XL shiner, courtesy of Eastman’s Sport and Tackle, got picked up by a quality holdover brown trout. It took about 20 minutes or more for the trout to finally pull the bobber under, and when I reeled down on the fish, it barely fought. As it approached the shore, the trout made one or two small runs and as we attempted to land it, it spat the bait and shook free at our ankles. We got a good look at what was likely a 4-pound brown trout— a big male, indicated by the hooked lower jaw. Upon inspecting my bait, the fish wasn’t even hooked and had just been swimming around trying to fit the shiner in its mouth; the hook was fouled up and had buried itself into the backside of the shiner, which means we reeled in this trout while its jaw was just clamped down on the bait. It was like a game of tug-of-war.

The point is, whether you choose to fish during the day or night, with live bait or lures, there are fish biting in our ponds now that we’re experiencing some mild weather. Check out the trout stocking report (linked below) to see what has been stocked near you.

» Trout Stocking Report: Click here to check out which ponds have been stocked in your area

 
Connor Swartz at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay said the trout fishing has been really good now that most, if not all the ponds around Cape and Plymouth, have been stocked. They have a revolving door with anglers getting bait for trout and others picking up last-minute bass gear this week. Additionally, Connor and Bull said that herring are packed into the rivers around Wareham and Middleboro, so there is potential for some quality holdover stripers to be caught over the next few weeks. Bull said the earliest he’s ever seen herring on Cape was last year, when herring arrived in force during the 3rd week of April. Water temps are still pretty cold right now in comparison to last year, so we can expect the herring to show on Cape around mid April, although a few scouts might continue to trickle in over the next couple weeks. Stop by the shop for your trout and bass fishing needs this weekend.

Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth told me he’s been busier with the warm weather this week. He sold a bunch of big shiners to Cam yesterday, which we used for trout and bass, and only ended up with some finicky brown trout and a couple overzealous yellow perch. He still has 6 or 7 dozen left and should be getting more shiners in soon, plus he’s been busy restocking the freshwater lure department with jerkbaits, Rapalas, wakebaits, soft plastics, spinners and more. If you’re fishing the kettle ponds and bass ponds around the Upper Cape, swing by and pick up what you need on the way to the spot.

Lee at Riverview Bait and Tackle in South Yarmouth reported much better fishing activity this week in their neck of the woods. With the mild temps and trout ponds being stocked, there’s been an uptick in interest and more people getting outside. Lee said they’re selling equal parts lures and live bait to the trout crowd, but they have not seen as much interest in bass just yet. A few more warm days and some of the larger ponds will start to see more activity in the way of largemouth and smallmouth.

Christian at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis said he’s sold at least 6 dozen shiners over the past couple days, along with gold spoons and spinners being the top selections for artificials. They did a 2nd round of trout stocking this week in some ponds so he went out yesterday and did some fly fishing first thing in the morning, throwing green wooly buggers, leeches and midge patterns, but to no avail. Christian also mentioned they had one customer come in on Sunday morning who had limited out on trout using big shiners in the snotty wind and weather conditions. He said he even caught a couple holdovers with the recent stockies too. On another note, yellow perch just spawned, or are spawning now, so they are fattened up with eggs and will aggressively strike jerkbaits, soft plastics, perch-colored Rapalas and live baits like shiners and nightcrawlers. Something to keep in mind when you are bass fishing too; bass will gorge on young of year yellow perch and the big ones will even gobble up a full-grown perch.

Last weekend, at the New England Saltwater Fishing Expo hosted by RISAA, I touched base with a few of our local captains who have been hard at work preparing their boats and filling their schedules for the upcoming saltwater season.

Captain Cam Faria of Cambo Charters reported that he’s got some work being done on his boat to make it more comfortable this season, and he plans to start charters around mid to late April once the first stripers come in around Buzzards Bay. He’s already booking trips, so visit his website to learn more or just give him a call to lock in some dates.

Captain Ross of Cape Cod Charter Guys in Bourne reported that they are going to start fishing on May 1 this year, and man was he eager to get out on the water. They’ll start the season with stripers and chase just about anything once the saltwater season is in full swing, so contact him to get a few trips on the books before the best dates fill up.

• Want to get in on the bite? Find an OTW-approved Charter Fishing Captain around Cape Cod and the Islands!

Cape Cod Fishing Forecast

Pickerel and perch, bass and trout. There are plenty of options in the ponds this week. The weekend weather forecast, initially, looked grim. Sunday might be a wash, but don’t count out fishing through the snotty conditions, as the best bass or trout fishing often occurs with the wind in your face and a couple rain layers on.

If you’re trout fishing with lures this week, try the classics like gold spoons and spinners, or suspending jerkbaits from brands like Rapala or Baker Lures. If using bait, nightcrawlers or live shiners will do just fine. Generally, you’ll want smaller shiners for trout and bigger ones for bass. But in ponds with holdover trout, those large shiners could be the ticket to a trophy.

Bass fishing in the late afternoon or evening is the most productive window. The shallow ponds warm up all day in the sun, so feeding activity will peak around dusk or dark. At night, think big swimbaits, wakebaits and gliders on a slow retrieve. During the day, jerkbaits, soft-plastic paddletails, smaller jointed swimbaits, swim jigs, lipless crankbaits and small spinnerbaits or chatterbaits should bring a few fish to hand.

Don’t be surprised if you run into a bycatch of pickerel and yellow perch on the bass ponds. They’re both spawning right about now if they haven’t done so already. Once pickerel spawn, they feed aggressively for about a month, and then I never really catch a ton of them again until November. If you want to boost your odds of hooking a trophy pickerel or even a big bass, use yellow-perch-colored lures. I don’t usually harp on color too much when it comes to freshwater, but perch spawns put a ton of small, gold baitfish in the water, so yellow or gold Rapalas, spoons and spinners get noticed and can lead to some very successful days on the water.

Wherever fishing finds you this week, have fun, respect your surroundings (and other anglers), stay safe, and fish hard. Thanks for reading.

(If you’d like to contribute to our weekly fishing reports, 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.)