Cape Cod Fishing Report
As we head into June, there are fishing opportunities just about anywhere you look around Cape.
Large stripers were chasing schools of bunker in Buzzards Bay on the back side of Tuesday’s new moon, and there were some big bluefish in the mix as well. The OTW crew went out for a TV shoot and hammered bass up to around 35 pound on flutter spoons; as we continue to see schools of bunker pushing through Buzzards and into Cape Cod Bay, make sure you don’t leave the dock without a few spoons on hand. Nichols Lures, Fat Cow Fishing, and Tsunami all make quality flutter spoons with solid hardware. To avoid being chomped off by bluefish, boost your leader strength to 50- or even 60-pound-test fluorocarbon.
It’s not all big bass and blues in Buzzards, though. There are schoolies from 12 to 20 inches feeding heavily on small sea herring in some of the harbors and along the beaches, from Bourne and Pocasset down to Woods Hole. Recently, 2- to 3-pound bluefish joined the party, according to Kevin Blinkoff who found small bass and blues rolling through schools of sea herring off West Falmouth yesterday. On the south side, in the ponds and harbors, it’s a similar story—only hickory shad have been far more abundant. The upper Cape’s south side estuaries also received a recent push of stripers from the low 20- to low-30-inch range, which have been actively chewing at night on a mix of small plugs, soft plastics and bucktails.
Fluke are beginning to move in, with slightly better numbers from the sea bass grounds to the salt ponds and harbors on the upper Cape. I caught my first fluke of the year from shore on Saturday afternoon while fishing a 4-inch chartreuse/white Gulp swimming mullet on a 1/2-ounce jighead with a bucktail teaser above it. Nearly every cast thereafter was met with pesky sea robins smacking the teaser. They’re in feeding on those same little sea herring that have been stacked for weeks now.
Out in Vineyard Sound and far western Nantucket Sound, stripers to 40 inches were caught in the rips over the weekend and early this week. Finding a pack or two of willing fish has required some bopping around, but Hedge Fence was the place to be for a few days despite squid being present in a number of rips. We saw small flocks of gulls plucking mid-size squid at Middle Ground with no fish on them over the weekend. Now, we’re just two days off the new moon, so fresh arrivals should be filling in the rips with each passing day.
Back in Buzzards Bay, the sea bass bite is still a little slow; bigger fish in better numbers are coming from the wrecks in Vineyard and Nantucket sounds, and there’s no shortage of platter-sized scup; they are widespread from Buzzards down through Nantucket Sound. I kept two jumbos for the dinner table, along with a nice 18.5-inch sea bass on Saturday while fishing in Buzzards with Chris Megan and Kevin Blinkoff. We had them on epoxy and slow-pitch jigs in 20 to 30 feet of water. I even caught a just-barely-short tautog on a 45-gram Sea Falcon Z Slow jig, which was a first.
The bunker that have been traversing Buzzards Bay this week are making their way into Cape Cod Bay, where bass in the 25- to 30-pound range are taking live-lined bunker and topwater plugs like the Doc, as well as live mackerel. Tighter to the beaches, stripers from the slot up to 25 pounds are hitting metal lips, needlefish, and minnow plugs, but they’ve been picky. It’s a very tide dependent bite at the moment, with the top of the incoming and early and late outgoing producing the best results for wading and shore fishermen.
Good flounder fishing continues in Cape Cod Bay for boats between Dennis and Truro heading out to drift in around 40 feet of water. The new moon tides have made slow drifts a bit more challenging this week, but there are still blackbacks to around 19 inches being caught on a mix of sea worms, clam, and mussels.
In other news, the first bonito of the year was caught off Martha’s Vineyard this week by Jack Gray, according to Dick’s Bait and Tackle in Oak Bluffs, who posted a photo of the sizable bone on their Instagram page. Let’s hope this is an early sign of another banner year for bonito around Cape Cod and the islands!
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Here’s what some of our local tackle shops and charters had to report heading into the weekend:
Connor Swartz at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay told me Buzzards Bay has a lot of large stripers that have been hanging pretty deep between 40 to 50 feet. Boats have been crushing them on flutter spoons all week, and Docs when they come up to the surface. Those bass haven’t been pushing close to shore, unfortunately. It seems like they’re just hanging around and waiting on the right tide to run through the Canal. The Canal has been okay this week; most fish have been right around the slot to mid-30-inch range and they’re hitting swimming plugs and topwaters around first light. The rips of Vineyard Sound were fishing well again yesterday after a brief hiatus, with stripers to 40-inches plus. Sea bass fishing in Buzzards Bay is improving finally, with some nice keepers, but the bite seems to be better at high tide in shallow water—around 20 to 30 feet. Cape Cod Bay, he added, is loaded with bass to around 40 pounds.
Alex MacMillian of FishLinked Charters in Wareham reported: “The striper action before the blow was absolutely incredible. We couldn’t seem to get the umbrella down before we were on; multiple doubles on the same rig. We’re finding limits on more than a few trips. They are gorging on live eels on our side of the bay. We have found fish up to 38 inches and everything else in between. Black sea bass has also remained consistent. We’re finding keepers on every trip, but nothing to tip the 20-inch mark yet. On the other hand, there seems to be dinner plate-sized porgies coming up everywhere you look. The fishing in Buzzards Bay is truly heating up, and from what we are hearing out of Narragansett, it’s just going to get even better.”
From the Cape Cod Canal, East End Eddie Doherty reports: “Last week began with the west end producing on the early west tide without breaks during daylight. Jay Saucier, vacationing from Old Town, Maine, hooked a high-end slot with a bone-colored Savage during an early dropping tide. Westwood’s Nikolay Gaykov, originally from Bulgaria, fooled a 32-inch striper with a green FishLab and Greek native Pieriklis Kitkos, now a Worcester resident, caught several fish before anyone else including two 35-inch fighters on a silver-colored jig. Carlos Reis from Falmouth enticed a 40-inch beast with his green Striper Gear Shaddy Daddy that brought the Boga down to 25 pounds! High hook went to Sandwich’s Joe “Green Gloves” Moneghan bouncing a green mack jig off the bottom to deceive two 47s and a 48-inch monster! After the turn, still without any breaks, John “Seadog” Schmidt from Pocasset, one of the Boys of Summer, convinced a 33-inch linesider to come to the surface of the east tide to bite his green mac Super Strike Little Neck Popper. Admission is free at the Boyden Library in Foxborough where I will be speaking this Saturday at 11am.”
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Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth said the striper fishing in the rips on the south side has been very time specific, and the tides have not been great for sun up or sundown. His buddy said Hedge Fence was loaded with fish on Saturday morning, and L’Hommideau was packed with fish under, over, and in the slot. Buzzards Bay still seems to be the best bet for stripers this week though. Flutter spoons have been the ticket out there. The fish are holding a mile or so offshore from mid bay down to the Elizabeths, and the biggest bass seem to be glued to bottom eating squid and pogies. Evan said he should have a fresh order of flutter spoons in Monday or Tuesday at the latest, as he was cleaned out earlier this week. On the shore fishing front, he said, a lot of people are struggling lately. Most of his customers are catching one or two fish here and there but it’s been tough work for mostly schoolies in the 20-inch range. On the bottom fishing front, most people fishing for sea bass are still running to Nantucket Sound, east of Hedge Fence, and the general consensus is that it has been easier to get limits this spring than last year even though it’s been tough to find fish over 20 inches.
Captain Cam Faria of Cambo Fishing Charters reported excellent fishing for stripers and bluefish in Buzzards Bay earlier this week. While some boats were picking up big bass on flutter spoons, Cam was fishing SP Minnows and slamming bluefish. He’s had tons of bass charters in Buzzards Bay recently and those have all gone well with fish in a range of size classes. Fluke, he added, are starting to show up in Vineyard Sound and Buzzards, and Cam has picked a few good ones in just about every spot he’s checked, so he is planning to focus on fatties a bit more over the next week. Give him a shout to get in on some early season flatfish action, or to target bass and bluefish.
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Amy at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis said sea bass fishing is decent locally; there are some keepers but it takes working through lots of shorts. The better bite seems to be in 35 to 40 feet of water closer to the Vineyard. A friend of hers caught a handful of 20+ inchers on bucktails and Gulp earlier this week. The striper bite, she said, has been picking up in the rips of Nantucket Sound, and it doesn’t sound like they’ve been super picky. The bigger Fish Snax are working very well, along with SP Minnows, and topwaters (although the bass have been more finicky toward topwater and are showing a preference for subsurface lures). On the Cape Cod Bay side, one of Amy’s friends who is a shop regular had a banner day of bass fishing this week; he caught one striper shy of 50 inches, several in the 40-inch range, and the smallest taped out at 36 inches. Amy said they were trolling umbrella rigs when the fish started feeding on top for about 20 minutes. SP Minnows caught some of the biggest bass that day. Back on the south side, scup fishing has been great; they are plentiful and large. Meanwhile, up in the bays and coves, it’s been quiet on the striper front. However, there are a few bluefish starting to cruise around on the south side, which is keeping things interesting for the shore crowd.
From the isle of Nantucket, Rick Ramos reported: “Striped bass fishing around Nantucket has been gradually improving, with more fish showing up each day. While overall action remains on the slower side, a few anglers are finding success along the structured, open beaches of the south shore. The West End has yet to produce strong numbers, but the harbor is holding fish, thanks to an abundance of bait flushing through the area. The annual Spring Sea Run Opener is officially underway, and the highlight of the week came from angler Victor Boucher, who landed a massive 46-inch striped bass—putting him in a commanding lead for the top fish in this year’s competition. Tournament founder Raf Osona shared his thoughts on this remarkable catch: ‘This is a tournament record. In fact, this may be the largest striped bass landed from the beaches of Nantucket during a tournament in over two decades.’ Congratulations to Victor, who has built a strong reputation for consistently targeting big fish. Once again, he’s setting a high bar for Nantucket surfcasters!”
George Sylvestre of Sylvestre Outdoors in Brewster shared: “Brewster Flats have been a bit moody after last weekend’s weather but things are starting to get more consistent, both with fishing and presence of bait. The bait we have been seeing (though not in large amounts yet) are mostly sand eels. Ran into a big bait ball of sand eels today at the end of the outgoing tide. Lots of stripers chomping for a short bit, then they moved off. The old Clouser Minnow works well for that. Crabs are also almost always around, so a good combo is to throw Clousers on an intermediate fly line when blind casting when bait is around; but also look for cruising fish when sight fishing conditions are right and have a few crab patterns in several sizes and colors (mainly green and white). Happy to report there seem to be more schoolie-sized stripers than the last couple of years. It’s good to see the little guys with some consistency. Hope they grow big and strong and eventually add to the health of the overall striper fishery in years to come.”
Captain Matthew Dempsey of Salt Reaper Charters in Dennis reported: “There’s been some great open-water action in Cape Cod Bay, with the bass seeming to favor mackerel and bunker. These bass are definitely on the move, and the key seems to be putting in miles looking for birds and active fish on top. The winter flounder are active, with some jumbos still kicking around, but the strong tides this week are making it difficult to keep drift speed low enough to stay on the bite.”
Captain Drew Downing of Down East Charters in Chatham reported: “Inshore along Chatham beaches and inside harbors, small bass can be found along with shad that were mixed in over the weekend. Cold water remaining from last week’s nor’easter pushed the pause button, but things seem to be back on track now with the SW flow. We traveled further than normal this week to find nice bass but typical locations closer to home should have fish soon enough.”
Captain Elena Rice of Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro reported: “Striped bass fishing continues to produce fish well over the slot, with stripers in the mid 40-inch range and some just flirting with 50 inches being caught and released this week. While initially mostly on live bait, we are getting more fish on topwater and vertically jigging, which is nice to see. We also had our first shark attack of the year, when a white shark took half of a striped bass just off the side of our boat. A reminder to be careful while landing fish boat side. The theme of this week though certainly has been anglers of all ages and skill levels having an absolute blast on Cape Cod waters! We have openings this weekend for anyone looking for a fishing trip which could produce lifelong memories. Check the booking calendar for availability.”
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
From lower Buzzards Bay to eastern Cape Cod Bay, big bass are in. In Buzzards, come armed with flutter spoons and heavy leader material. Bluefish are in the mix, and they’re readily eating minnow plugs and topwaters like the Doc. At times, the bass are on the surface as well.
In Cape Cod Bay, boats are finding success with multiple methods: live-lining, trolling, casting swimming plugs and topwaters, and jigging.
Surfcasters and shore anglers should look to Cape Cod Bay and the upper reaches of Buzzards for more reliable bass action. With all the fish movement and foul weather on the tail of the new moon, it’s prime time for a new personal best. There are transient schools of bunker meandering through Buzzards Bay and eventually, they’ll have to push through the big ditch. Cape Cod Bay has scattered bunker pods with fish up to 50 inches following, so gather your metal lips, glidebaits and darters and get to casting.
If you’re looking for sea bass, results are mixed across the board, but Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds sure seem to be hosting the better bites and some slightly larger fish than the average sea bass in Buzzards. Diamond jigs, clam, squid, buctkails & Gulp, and slow-pitch and epoxy-style jigs are all good choices in 20 to 40 feet of water. You may even run into some keeper fluke out there, which are a nice addition to a mixed bag of scup and sea bass. Familiarize yourself with the regs and remember, the size limit is different for boat and shore anglers.
Thanks for reading. Catch ’em up?