Well, 60 degrees and sunny was nice while it lasted. Per usual, the latter half of this week brought wind and rain, and more wind coming this weekend, with gusts over 30 knots in the forecast. We’ll have to play the hand we’re being dealt by Mother Nature, and pray for more blue skies ahead. Even despite the mixed conditions this past week, bass and trout have been active, only the action has been spotty—at least for bass.
Rain and wind aside, April is still a great month for to be an angler on Cape Cod. If you’ve received your April copy of On The Water Magazine, check out the Upper and Outer Cape fishing planners, as well as the Northeast Bass fishing planner. OTW’s Robbie Tartaglia insists that April is the month with the greatest potential to break your personal best largemouth bass, and I agree with him wholeheartedly. This time last year, I caught the biggest largemouth I have ever seen on a live shiner. It would have been great to hook it with an artificial, but that catch reinforced Robbie’s notion that April is prime time to throw big baits. Big bluegills (the size of my hand) have been cruising in shallow at night, the kettle ponds are all stocked with trout, and herring are running the creeks and ponds, so XL lures are more likely to get a look from a trophy bass.
All that being said, I personally struggled on the bass ponds this week.
Saturday I snuck out for a couple hours in the morning and tossed around some 3 and 4-inch Vudu Mullet swimbaits. The 4-inch didn’t get even get sniffed, but the 3-inch model stuck a handful of 1-pound largemouth that were fully inhaling the bait.
The bite shut off promptly as a north wind picked up, so I moved to another spot—a bog pond, where the wind would be at my back. I came away with only two bass of the same class on 3-inch Keitech Easy Shiners in the smallmouth magic color.
As mentioned earlier, the drastically changing conditions have made it very difficult to build any sort of pattern on the bass fishing front. Sunday night was the polar opposite of Saturday. Calm, clear and mild weather was moving in after cold rain and sleet fell in Falmouth 24 hours prior, and it generated a dramatic fog on the bass pond I was wading in with Connor Swartz. The water was noticeably colder, but were equipped with wakebaits in hopes of finding some hungry bass that had lockjaw during the stormy conditions on Saturday. Surprisingly, we found a few small bass willing to eat our wakes, but they were in a deeper area of the pond, holding in tall weeds, rather than sitting in the shallow corner in which I’m used to finding them in April. I dropped one nice fish after letting it eat the wake, and I questioned how and why. But, when Connor and I swapped spots to put different baits in front of the fish we were likely casting over, my question was answered. Connor casted almost directly where I had been hit, and he reeled in a decent size chain pickerel. I’ve caught a lot of chain pickerel in my life, but this is the only one I have ever seen caught after dark. Judging by the Instagram poll I took, most people have not seen pickerel active at night. They’re very visual feeders with keen eyesight, so daylight helps. A Sunday night slime dart was a strange “first” that was fitting for the eerie aura the fog had created around us.
Last night, I went out for bass with my friend Jack and we got skunked hard. Not even a swipe at one of our baits, at either of the two ponds we hit. We heard and saw big fish crashing on what I can only imagine was a school of herring, which were just out of casting range toward the middle of the lake. We threw glidebaits, wakebaits, soft-plastic swimbaits with no results. It was a big tease. After a few more minutes of fishing, we turned on our headlamps only to find a massive snapping turtle lurking in the weeds, uncomfortably close to where I was standing. That’s all it took to call it a night.
And while I’ve been struggling on the bass ponds, holdover striper fishing has been producing pretty solid results. Since the new moon on Monday this week, there’s been an uptick in striper activity in the rivers around Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay. Catching the outgoing tide seems to be the common factor for success. Most people I’ve spoken to are using 4- to 7-inch paddletail or straight-tail soft plastics. I hope to get in on the action this weekend.
Tautog fishing has been slow so far. Most tackle shops are just getting their first orders of green crabs and sea worms, so I got a little experimental after work on Tuesday and tied up a few rigs at my desk that were destined to be tipped with Berkley Gulp Peeler Crabs in the new penny color. I hit two shore spots on the south side of Cape in Vineyard Sound, but I couldn’t hold bottom with a 3-ounce sinker, which was the heaviest I had on me. The strength of those new moon tides were still in full effect.
This weekend the wind is going to make things difficult again, so most boats probably won’t be getting out for tog, but any action will likely be reserved to Buzzards Bay.
When the wind is howling and you can’t go toggin’, trout fishing is still a great way to bend a rod. The tackle shops are selling through trout lures, after some ponds received their 2nd and even 3rd rounds of stocking. Here on the Upper Cape, Brandon Robinson continues to put a beating on trout from his Jon boat by trolling spoons and Rapalas, or casting toward structure like downed timber in sheltered coves.
Hit the trout ponds while the action is good, because there’s more fish in the water now than there have been all year, and soon, it’ll be hard to turn away from the salt.
Stripers are en route, and based on years past, I’d guess they’ll be in the surf off of Martha’s Vineyard by Monday, maybe Tuesday. My friend and a friend of OTW, Stavros Viglas, is usually one of the first casters out on the south-facing beaches, tossing bucktails and soft plastics in search of those first liced-up schoolies. The past two years, I’ve received texts from him on April 15th with a photo of a striped bass covered in sea lice. It’s like Christmas morning when that message comes in.
Here’s what the local tackle shops and charter captains had to share this week:
Connor at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay told me that a gentleman who regularly fishes shiners on Mashpee/Wakeby Pond for trout came in for bait this week with a photo of a crazy large chain pickerel. Connor said he’s a routine customer who often catches big smallmouth as bycatch, but this week he showed them a pickerel that was larger than anyone in the shop had ever seen. (We’re working on tracking down the photo, and will include it if possible.) Trout has been the main draw for their customers this week, but bass fishing has been good too, he said. Another customer came in with photos of a 4- to 5-pound smallmouth bass that he caught on an upper Cape pond earlier this week, too. Connor also mentioned that some of the local salt-minded fishermen are getting into short tautog from shore, though they have been very tight lipped about where, for obvious reasons. The shop is already stocked up on green crabs, and they just got their new Red Top canal/surf rods in, so if you need a new stick for the ditch, swing by and check out the selection.
Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth said weather has really impacted the crowds so fishing has been slower this week, but he is selling shiners here and there to the local trout and bass crowd. Earlier today, the shop also received a large order of saltwater baits including sea worms, green crabs, squid, clams and mackerel, so they’re all stocked up for anyone looking to go out for tog in the coming week or two.
Amy at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis reported that Gary, a local and shop regular, caught some nice brown trout on a gold Kastmaster right before the eclipse peaked on Monday. He said the fishing was pretty slow until 2:30 or 3:00 when suddenly the bite just turned on and he started catching them with relative ease. It makes you wonder if the fish just took it as a false sign of dusk and put on the feed bag. Pretty cool! Amy also mentioned there have been a few customers asking about green crabs, which they will have in the shop by Friday for the weekend tautog crowd. They also have sea worms for anyone looking to go winter flounder fishing, though reports have been quiet on that front so far. Sounds like it’s a good time to make your own flounder report! On the Cape Cod Bay side, they might be stacked up in select harbors before moving back out into the bay. Worth a shot!
Captain Elena Rice of Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro told me:
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Want to get in on the bite? Find an OTW-approved Charter Fishing Captain around Cape Cod and the Islands!
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
The good news is, this looks like the last of the rain for the foreseeable future. From Sunday onward, there’s nothing but mild weather and clear or cloudy skies in the forecast through next weekend. The best options this weekend remain in the freshwater ponds, but by this time next week, we could have stripers swimming off the south side of Martha’s Vineyard, and tautog fishing could (and should) be in an entirely different state than it is right now. Air temps are approaching the 60s for much of next week, so water temps will begin to climb at a more steady rate and the tog bite will improve around shallow, craggy corners of Buzzards Bay. Most of our local shops will be carrying green crabs by the weekend if they’re not already.
If you’re looking for a change of pace, pick up some sea worms from your local shop and bop around some of the eastern harbors on Cape Cod Bay. All you need besides bait is a light spinning setup, a couple flounder rigs and a fistful of bank sinkers. Maybe I’ll see you out there, because I’m yearning for something different after a tough week on the bass ponds.
Don’t let one person’s struggle (mine) deter you from bass fishing though. As stated in the beginning of the report, April is easily the best month to be a largemouth bass fisherman on Cape Cod. Swim jigs, chatterbaits and buzz baits with a soft-plastic trailer are great daytime options, while larger offerings like wakes, glides and swimbaits will entice big bass at night. Think river herring, small stocked trout and sunfish to match your profile accordingly to what’s swimming in shallow this time of year.
We’re inching toward the start of the saltwater season, people. It’s all happening. Get out there and stick your PB bass, bend the rod with the reliability of stocked trout, or try and land your first saltwater fish of the year with a winter flounder or a tautog. Best of luck out there. Stay safe, fish hard, and thank you 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.)