Cape Cod Fishing Report- May 30, 2024

Cape Cod Fishing Report

Last weekend was picture perfect. Clear blue skies, low winds, warm weather— it feels like summer is already here. And it might as well be summer. I don’t know where May went, but June is around the corner, and with it comes early reports of fluke, more bluefish chasing bunker and squid, and the start of bluefin tuna season on Saturday.

Surf fishing has slowed a bit on the south side during the morning/evening hours this week. It seems like the fish are a bit more spread out and less concentrated around the inlets, which is to be expected now that squid are filling in nicely in the rips and beyond. I’ve been half-heartedly looking for bass during those low light hours, with high hopes that my pencils, metals, or poppers will be met by bluefish instead of stripers, but no such luck yet. However, I did find some hickory shad in the surf, and oddly enough I walked into a juvenile sea robin “blitz” along the beach lip the other day. That was weird, but it was another indicator that summer has basically arrived.

Since I can’t find bluefish in the surf and the bright full moon has passed, I’ve fallen back on striper fishing at night to provide a much needed bend in the rod. However, recent sustained southwest winds, which tend to be the winds of the bluefish, have kicked up a ton of mung and slip gut, and tainted the water clarity. It has made fishing subsurface lures on much of the south side next to impossible unless you catch the right stage of the tide which, in my experience, has been the bottom of the ebb into the early incoming. As a result, all of my recent outings have been timed around this tide window, and I’ve been able to scratch some healthy schoolie and slot-class fish on bucktails.

Personally, I have yet to do any bottom fishing this season, but it seems like no matter where you go, you’ll find some fish for the cooler. Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds are seeing better sea bass fishing, scup are all over the place, and winter flounder fishing is great in Cape Cod Bay. On Friday, OTW’s Andy Nabreski went out with Captain Jason Colby of Little Sister Charters in Sesuit Harbor, and they were able to get their limit of blackbacks in a few hours. He said they also caught a few windowpane flounder, which are a cool bucket list species I’ve always wanted to catch. Just make sure that if you do catch a windowpane, you throw it right back after a picture. Lucky for me, Andy was kind enough to donate a couple flounder fillets, which I promptly fried up and turned into fish sandwiches. As Andy would say in his magazine column Living Off the Land and Sea,  “Mmmmmmm.”

From the Cape Cod Canal, East End Eddie Doherty reports: ” ‘Breakin Bob’ Weir fooled a 28-pound bass with a white FishLab on a rising east tide and a few days later landed a 26-pound striper bouncing a Hurley green mack Canal Killer off the bottom. The powerful stripers finally surrendered after tough battles with both fish measuring out to 42 inches! Tim “Hollywood” Petracca and “Paulie the Painter” Gravina both brought 35-inch linesiders to the rocks with white Swarters near mid Canal. Dwight Cochrane, who travels from Maine to fish the Canal, defeated a nice fish with a black Savage from the bottom. A fat 34 incher was reeled in by “Bill on the Grill” Prodouz around mid-Canal and Kenny Nevens scored with a well fed 35-inch linesider that fell for a green FishLab at the end of a west tide. The season is open and well underway in Massachusetts for black sea bass, tautog, scup and summer flounder, part time residents of the Canal. Jeff Hopwood had a patriotic phrase on the sign in front of Maco’s Bait & Tackle on Memorial Day – ‘To live in hearts we left behind is not to die.’ If not for our brave veterans and active duty military, we couldn’t live freely in the greatest country on the face of the earth.”

Connor Swartz at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay said he’s been fly fishing a lot this week for schoolies and he’s found a new addiction in it. He and his friend Howie have been tying into small bass from shore in upper Buzzards Bay. But, in the way of bigger fish, the Canal, he said, has been good, however the bite has significantly slowed over the past two mornings after a weekend of lights out action. Monday morning saw some fish in the 40-pound class feeding on top, and there are still plenty of that size in the Bay waiting to shoot through the ditch. He also said the rips in Vineyard Sound are loaded with mostly schoolies and slots, with some over-slot fish in the mix keeping things interesting. The surf bite been good on the south coast with some larger bass and bluefish taking plugs at night. Sea bass fishing is still good in Buzzards, but now it requires weeding through a lot of shorts unless you can find them in deeper water around 60 to 90 feet. Connor is most looking forward to tuna season opening this Saturday and said he is keeping an eye on the start date of recreational trophy bluefin season, which should be open come the second Saturday in June.

Morgan from Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis said they’re seeing a fair amount of slot-class fish mixed in with schoolies on the south side, especially off the shoals, where topwater plugs and bucktail jigs have been working well depending on where you’re marking fish in the water column. The Cape Cod Bay side has stripers of the same size class, with Yo-Zuri pencil poppers, in particular, working well during the low-light hours. She said the bluefish bite has been super sporadic back on the south side, with some customers catching a handful and others finding none at all. And surprisingly, Morgan said they’ve gotten a few solid reports of fluke being caught in Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds, plus a decent amount of scup and sea bass. The larger sea bass are really starting to move into Nantucket Sound now, and bucktails and Gulp or soft-plastic jigs that resemble squid have been the key producers.

Captain Ross of Cape Cod Charter Guys in Bourne reported great striper fishing this week before some weather moved in and threw things off a bit. He said there’s lots of squid out there with a fair amount of big pogies around in the Bay, so with those two baits showing in numbers, he anticipates seeing some large bluefish in the near future. They have had to hunt for their fish a bite after some recent weather, but covering water has been key to putting together a catch. They’re catching mostly on topwater and when the fish aren’t on top, they are jigging soft plastics; however, there’s been a ton of mung all over Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay, which has made it challenging to fish subsurface at times. Sea bass fishing has been slower on the few trips they’ve had, but the bigger ones are biting the skipper’s hand-poured diamond jigs in deep water, which weeds out many of the shorts and the scup.

Alex MacMillian of FishLinked Charters our of Wareham reported: “The fog has been rolling in thick as temperatures in Buzzards Bay rise. We are now finding stripers and blues working in unison to slam pogies and eels. Blitzes were rocketing off in the fog throughout Memorial Day weekend and into this week. Just don’t forget your wire leaders because gator blues are lurking in the mix. This latest class of fish has been especially finicky, so have a few methods prepared; we’ve found trolling, jigging, and live bait to work depending on the day. Also, keeper size black sea bass and abnormally large scup have moved in with the sea bass devouring squid. Working high/low rigs on structure will do the trick.”

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

Captain Cam Faria of Cambo Charters said he will be scouting for tuna on Friday before opening day. He has a striper charter on Saturday, and hopes to go out tuna fishing on Sunday with a plan to troll some ballyhoo in search of the first bluefin of the season.

Captain Elena Rice of Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro reported: “Black sea bass fishing has greatly improved this week with artificials in pink and pearl getting it done more so than with bait. Nice-sized keepers were mixed in with several shorts for consistent bent rod activity. Then to the striped bass scene off outer Cape Cod, where some really large striped bass in massive schools were recently encountered hitting topwater plugs and live bait. Check out this reel on our IG page from the Done Deal when Captain Bobby Rice was out fishing yesterday (5/29).”

Captain Drew Downing of Downeast Charters in Chatham reported that the bite has been a little slower than usual for this time of year in his neck of the woods. They’ve got schoolies in the harbors and small bass on south side beaches, but it has yet to really take off. They’re waiting for the rips to pick up a bit, but he mentioned that the water temperature is still 47 degrees on the ebb tide so it’s a little too chilly for the bass to really set up and feed. To pass the time, he has been focusing on sea bass fishing to the west, which has been pretty steady. This week we will probably see a decent uptick in water temperatures and squid numbers out east, so the bass should be on their way.

From Nantucket, Rick Ramos reported:

“If you are like me, you look forward to reading OTW’s weekly reports and the Striper Migration Map.  As a Nantucket surfcaster, I often read the reports coming from southern waters with both envy and excitement as their migratory striped bass reports get better and better each week.  On Nantucket, we wait and wait and wait, which seems like an eternity for that first bass to arrive.  The excitement in the Nantucket fishing community for the arrival of the first migratory striped bass is also fueled by The Spring Sea Run Opener, a charitable catch and release striped bass tournament celebrating the spring migration. I caught up with the tournament founder, Raf Osona, to share more on this exciting tournament. 

Now in its 8th season, this has become quite the event which allows for both individual and team competition (3 anglers, each angler’s best fish) as well as a junior angler category.  The official start date of the tournament begins when the first Nantucket striped bass caught with the presence of “sea lice”. This year’s first bass was caught on May 12th by Stephen Toffey and this was also the first slot sized “keeper”, a tournament first. Raf also reported that this season, small fish have largely bypassed the island with anything under 25 inches has been largely unseen or unreported. Large numbers of slot size fish have been the norm, with an explosion of larger class (35 to 39 inches) fish arriving with the Memorial Day evening storm. Cody Peterson holds the lead for longest bass at 38 inches and his teammate, Tammy King, on “The Dream Team” also landed a heavier 34-inch bass on that same outing. 

With larger fish moving in there’s plenty of opportunity to shake up the lead board.  The tournament ends June 1st.  Stay current at: https://www.springsearunopener.com/leader-board.

As a member of Go Bucktails with my teammates Bill Tornovish and Greg Chotkowski, we’ve been covering a lot of ground while trying to pick the right tides.  Unfortunately, we’ve not yet found the bigger fish that the top two team have but we have connected with solid numbers of slots on the south shore throwing mostly 2oz bucktails and IslandX Hellfire in the wash while sluggos have been most effective in Nantucket Harbor. 

I also checked in with Dan Holmes of Nantucket Surfcasting who has been on a slow and steady roll of catching smaller slot sized bass. Dan stated that low light conditions around the full moon phase produced as expected with larger schools and chunkier bass filling in around Memorial Day weekend.  Dan has had most success with the nine–inch sluggo and relying on SP Minnows, bucktails, and some metals filling in as conditions and locations change.  Rumors of a few blues chomping soft plastics have been circulating but have not yet shown themselves.  We predict on any tide now we will see bluefish swarm the island which typically follows the annual squid invasion. 

And finally, from the boat, Captain Corey Gammill of Bill Fisher Outfitters reported that fishing is improving by the day.  Nantucket and Madaket Harbors are getting better with each tide.  We are two weeks behind from past seasons migration patterns but it’s quickly catching up.  Nantucket waters are loaded with bait such as sand eels, mackerel, pogies and squid.  We are early in the squid run so there’s a ton of optimism ahead as there’s plenty of bait around the island which will bring in larger schools of bass and soon bluefish.  The south shore is the area to focus as well as Old Man Shoals and the edges around the Vineyard are producing.  The edges around Nantucket are not yet producing as we are still waiting for the edges of Tuckernuck and Muskeget to start heating up.  Great Point will be the last spot to turn on in the migration run.  These should come alive very soon as every couple of days we are seeing new fish appear and of larger class.”

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

Cape Cod Fishing Forecast

After months of rain this spring, we’ve been blessed with two weekends of beautiful weather forecasts in a row. The best bets for filling the cooler over the weekend will be bottom fishing for a mix of scup and sea bass, and who knows, maybe a couple fluke! There’s plenty of squid to go around, so the sea bass are eating well, and fluke love calamari just as much as sea biscuits, so don’t be surprised if you hook a rogue flattie. The season is open, and the fluke limit (for vessels) is 5 fish at a minimum size of 17.5 inches. For shore anglers, it’s the same bag limit with a 16.5-inch minimum size.

Stripers are thick in the rips of Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds, where they’re also feeding on squid. It doesn’t sound like there are many bluefish with them at this time; they seem preoccupied with bunker in Buzzards Bay, where larger bass are staged up waiting to head through the Canal. If you can score some live bait, that will help put some bigger bass in the boat, but those stripers have been very picky and they’re heavily pressured. Don’t hesitate to move away from the fleet in search of your own fish once you have some bait in the live well. Otherwise, dropping flutter spoons over some big marks on the fishfinder could be a productive backup plan. If topwater is your cup of tea, hit the water around dawn and dusk for the best odds at connecting with some bass (or blues) on the surface.

And if you plan to hunt some bluefin on opening day, may the odds be ever in your favor. Rig up some ballyhoo to troll, put out a spreader bar, or set out some live mackerel at various depths and see what happens. There’s plenty of bluefin action just south of us off the beaches of Long Island, so it’s only a matter of time until the temperatures line up for them to move into shallower locales, because there’s no shortage of mackerel out there right now.

Stay safe out there and thanks for reading.