Cape Cod Fishing Report
Early September is a season of its own, and it’s a season of change. It’s not quite fall, but it’s too cool to be summer. Sea bass season has ended, albies are still filling in, small bluefish from snapper to cocktail size have arrived in force, and striped bass fishing is picking up steam as the fish put on the feed bag and prepare to head south. We still have a few weeks left of our fluke season, but few, if any anglers have flatfish on the mind this time of year. Early September is albie season.
Bonito continued to dominate reports this week, and at this point, word around Cape is that people are growing tired of them. Albies are on the mind, and while bonito are fun and frantic fighters, they don’t exactly provide the same thrill of an albie ripping line off your reel.
Anglers hunting for albies in Buzzards Bay are finding mostly small bluefish beneath the diving terns and laughing gulls. The albies are slowly filtering in around the Cape side of lower Buzzards Bay; they seem to be stacked around the Elizabeth Islands up to Woods Hole where they’re mixing in with bonito. Out in western Nantucket Sound, it’s a different story. Extra-large false albacore have been the norm there, and many anglers heading south of the Vineyard in search of bluefin tuna are reporting big albies intercepting jigs, as well. Bonito are still abundant in Cape Cod Bay, but with few (if any) albies in northern Buzzards Bay, we have yet to see them make a push through the Canal and into CCB as they did last year.
Stripers and are feeding on big schools of silversides, bay anchovies, peanut bunker, and snapper bluefish, which they’re pinning close to shore during the early mornings along the south side and in Cape Cod Bay. In some areas, bass have started showing up in the rivers and bays again as water temperatures slowly cool. In the backwaters, a great way to get those picky fish to bite is to pitch a small- to medium-size live or dead eel on a circle hook and drift it through areas of slow-moving current. Otherwise, hit your local jetty and consider fishing eels from the tip on an outgoing tide. Andy Nabreski taught me that you can pretty reliably find bass just outside the mouths of our salt ponds and rivers with a few small live eels, even when it seems like the water in front of you is totally devoid of life. Plus, brown sharks are just beginning to thin out a bit, so it’s a great time of year to experiment with eels for stripers. It’s worth the chunk of change for a bucket of them, and if you don’t go through all the eels, just freeze them for use later on.
It’s also a fantastic time of time of year to take the kids out fishing after school or on the weekend. With scup, northern puffers, northern kingfish, snapper blues, fluke, juvenile sea bass, and more available in shallow water from piers and docks, a pack of frozen squid or Berkley Gulp can go a long way. Who knows, you may even end up with a few tasty fillets for the dinner table. Northern puffers and northern kingfish are two of my favorite late-summer eating fish. If you manage to land a few northern puffers and you’ve never tasted their meat, I highly recommend:
- first making sure it’s a northern puffer, not a highly-toxic smooth puffer
- battering (or breading) and frying them
Thank me later!
Buzzards Bay & Cape Cod Canal
Connor Swartz at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay said fluke fishing is still good outside of the Cape Cod Canal. He’s been getting fluke in the 20-inch range on epoxy jigs while drifting in 20 to 35 feet of water. If you come across a school of snapper bluefish, which have been marked by flocking terns with seemingly no fish beneath them, consider dropping your jig straight down; fluke could be feeding on the same bait beneath the snappers, or just eating the snappers, which are about 6 inches long. I fished with Connor on Tuesday afternoon and broke off what would have been a mighty fluke on a 1-ounce peanut bunker resin jig while fishing alongside a school of snappers. Albies have yet to make a strong showing in Buzzards, but they’re moving closer by the day, and bonito are still around in numbers. Connor added that there are some quality tautog to be caught in the Canal, where there’s also been a decent topwater striper bite as of late. It hasn’t been “lights out” fishing, Connor said, but the fish are getting bigger for sure. Tedy Bruschi came in to the shop yesterday after catching a 21 pounder, and Bull MacKinnon came in to work this morning and said his biggest bass was 24 pounds. Bass fishing is only going to continue to get better from here!
From the Canal, East End Eddie Doherty reports: “Fishing had slowed down until the weekend’s new moon changed our luck! Birds are diving for bunker with loads of rain bait everywhere as fish are breaking up and down the Canal. “Wild Willi” Williams was bouncing a green mack Savage off the bottom a couple of hours before first light when he was hit hard as an intense battle ensued. The personable surfcaster finessed a 27-pound striper to the rocks through the east flood tide, then reeled in another linesider that weighed 20 pounds! The pride of Roslindale, Bill “Slots” Walsh, landed a nice keeper that hit his white Super Strike Little Neck popper on the Cape side just before sunrise on the tail end of an east bound tide. Dave “Skilsaw” Currie was into fish with his chicken scratch Daiwa SP Minnow, including a slot, until a seal stopped the action on the east flow. Mosquitoes have gone from being a nuisance to a lethal insect so don’t forget your bug spray!
Cape Cod Bay & Outer Cape
Captain Elena Rice of Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro reported: “As expected with the arrival of September on Cape Cod, the bluefin tuna fishing has improved with several fish landed this week fishing conventional gear with live bait and spinning rods with RonZ Lures and Hogy jigs. Plenty of action and excitement, as well as a serious workout for those battling a bluefin with our light tackle Centaur jigging rods. Memorable moments for sure! Striped bass fishing also continues to provide awesome activity and should not be missed this month! The vertical jig bite is taking the lead spot heading into the late summer with topwater lures still getting some attention, too. There are a few openings in the calendar for next week, be sure to book soon.”
Captain Drew Downing of Down East Charters in Chatham reported: “Fishing continues to be productive in and around Chatham waters. The rips have definitely slowed from the fever pitch of summer but should start to pick back up as small bait and more hardtails make the corner. There are still bass and blues along the ocean side beaches under birds most days. We’ve got bones and a few albies in our local waters but a lot of that is still to the west of us.”
Amy from Sports Port in Hyannis gave a detailed report of fishing on the south side, but during our discussion, she also mentioned that several of their shop regulars have had hit or miss striper fishing from shore in Cape Cod Bay. When the fish are chewing, she said, they’ve shown a strong preference for Hogy Surface Erasers.
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Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds/The Islands
Sailing out of Hyannis, the Helen H Fleet reported their first 3-day offshore trip was a success. The fishing started out slow with only one yellowfin and a mahi landed on Day 1, but on Day 2 they got a few yellowfin while trolling, along with a 300-pound blue marlin. Later that day during the overnight shift, they had a steady pick of yellowfin tuna, managing about 1 fish per hour until sunrise when they picked up a few more on the troll, totaling around 15-20 yellowfin in the 50- to 60-pound range with a side of mahi to complement their blue marlin. Unfortunately, they’ve been cancelled over the past few days and will probably will lose the weekend due to high winds offshore. Check out the website for upcoming availability if you want to jump on one of their canyon trips.
Amy at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis said that Nantucket Sound is still loaded with bonito, Spanish mackerel and albies. She’s been getting out there with her family this week and noted that they’re finding bonito and Spanish macks closer to shore. Albies, on the other hand, seem to be stationed further out in the Sound, but they are big and they are abundant. The bonito are feeding in much smaller schools while the albie feeds have been large and the fish have been extremely picky. There’s lots of rain bait out there, but they did manage a few bonito on silver epoxy jigs. And funny enough, Amy said they are now getting reports of bigger black sea bass on bottom, of course, now that the season is closed. Anglers are catching those sea bass while dropping jigs or rigs for scup, which are still chewing well. She added that they haven’t been seeing the bluefish out front like other parts of the Cape have, but there are still tons of snappers in the bays and marinas. Brown sharking has also slowed down significantly on the south side, which is refreshing to hear for striped bass anglers who enjoy fishing with eels.
From Nantucket, Rick Ramos provides a fishing update: “Sunday, we closed out our annual August Blues Nantucket fishing tournament by celebrating our winners. Congratulations to our grand prize Triple Strike winners, junior angler Graham Staniford, boat angler Heather Unruh and beach angler Tedy Bruschi. It was an exciting tournament, and our local angling competition continues as we now roll into the Nantucket Inshore Classic running September 8th – October 12th, 2024.
This past weekend I was able to get out to the fluke grounds where we picked up a few fluke and lots of black sea bass before the season closed. The east end of the island also had a ton of bonito action with more and more albies filling on each tide. It’s still puzzling to us all as to why we have seen so few bluefish this season. But as we were buzzing back into Madaket Harbor we were excited to see large schools of menhaden running the south shore to the west end of Nantucket. All promising signs that we are setting up for a strong fall run in the coming weeks.
I checked in with surfcasting guide Tammy King for the surf report. Tammy set out on the south shore to the west end of the island to do some blue fishing and hooked into a few 30” fish. Tammy stated “Late afternoon arrived, and I was about to head out when I was hit by the smell that stops you in your tracks, thinking we were in a bluefish slick but it was stripers feeding on tinker blues. Decent size bass were hitting the Hopkins Shorty and Deadly Dicks. They’ve been holding up in a few locations. Time to get out there and focus on striped bass again. Blues arrived yesterday out on the east end of the island. Decent size yellow eyes, hitting pink and green Hogy epoxy jigs.” There are a lot in close on the beaches so conditions are setting up nicely for a fishy September.”
Offshore
With the commercial season reopen as of September 2, giant bluefin tuna fishing resumed off of Provincetown with fish being taken on bait and while trolling, with a few recreational size fish peppered in. The canyons southeast of Cape Cod, like Veatch, Munson, and Hydrographers, are experiencing a steady pick of yellowfin, bigeye, and the occasional longfin tuna on the troll and chunking, and blue marlin have also been taken on the troll. Meanwhile, closer to home, white marlin are still being caught south of the Elizabeth Islands when conditions are conducive to sight fishing, and a few bluefin are being taken on the troll.
» Click to watch the most recent Northeast Offshore Report
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
We’ve got some beautiful early fall weather ahead with overnight lows around 60 degrees and daytime highs in the low 70s. Expect local striped bass fishing to improve drastically over the next couple of weeks, along with the arrival of more albies, and hopefully, some larger bluefish!
The forecast calls for a big shift in wind direction from east/northeast on Friday and Saturday, to south/southwest by Sunday morning. Trips to the canyons may be out of the question this weekend as a result of heavy offshore winds, but tuna fishing in Cape Cod Bay, east of Chatham, as well as south of the Vineyard, will be feasible options.
The best bet for the weekend is to get out early in the morning in pursuit of hardtails or striped bass. From Vineyard Sound and the Elizabeths to western Nantucket Sound, there are big albies in open water. For whatever reason, they just haven’t been coming in close enough for shore fishermen to reach in most cases. For bass, try the beaches of Cape Cod Bay, the outer beaches, or hit the Cape Cod Canal.
It may be local summer on Cape Cod, but with more gorgeous weather ahead, weekend boat crowds will still be heavy. Remember to be safe and respectful out there if you’re chasing around inshore pelagics in Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds. In the words of every coach I’ve ever had: “keep ya head on a swivel!”
Hopefully by next week, we’ll have albies in Buzzards Bay and improved recreational tuna fishing both east and south of Cape Cod and the Islands.