Cape Cod Fishing Report
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The fall run is officially in full swing.
Cooler temperatures persist, and with some recent rain, wind, overcast conditions, and a plethora of baitfish around Cape Cod, our inshore gamefish have responded accordingly. The new moon is approaching and just so happens to fall on the autumnal equinox (September 21), so if you haven’t already, it’s time to pick up your favorite striper stick and get to casting.
On the south side of Cape Cod, the salt ponds, bays, and rivers are providing some solid topwater action during the mornings and evenings as bass gorge on silversides, peanut bunker, and bay anchovies. I’ve done my fair share of scouting out productive spots for the mullet run, but there are no signs of them in the usual areas yet. The mullet bite is a tough one to time; last year it happened in early September and by the time a nor’easter hit Cape Cod on the first day of fall, they were gone. However, the year prior, we had stripers blowing mullet out of the water on the beaches of Nantucket and Vineyard sounds into mid October. Of course, there’s a possibility that the mullet run simply doesn’t happen this year, but there have been sightings in the Cape Cod Canal and it’s tough to mistake any other baitfish in our waters for mullet, so don’t lose hope!
Whether the bite comes together or not, now is a great time to fish for striped bass in Cape Cod Bay, Buzzards Bay, and on the south side as baitfish exit the backwaters en masse. Our local tackle shops are selling eels left and right, and once you’ve got your hands on those slimy suckers, all you need is a pack of inline circle hooks and the right tide to enjoy a good striper bite after dark. With baitfish being flushed out of the salt ponds, rivers, and bays, focus on outgoing tides; personally, I like to target the last two hours of the ebb. If eels aren’t your speed, bucktails, mid-size minnow plugs, peanut-style metal lips, and deep-bodied paddletails are all good choices—especially if peanut bunker are prevalent in your area.
The bonito bite has certainly rebounded on the south side and in Buzzards Bay since it hit a lull after Hurricane Erin’s passing. Look for diving or low-flying birds, and if/when conditions are calm enough, nervous water to key you in to likely areas for surface feeds. Albies are in the mix from Chatham to the Elizabeth Islands, and anglers participating in the annual MV Derby have landed some truly large alberts; it appears the jumbos that were hanging around off Nantucket have dispersed, and we’re seeing them push inshore where there’s an ample supply of peanuts and anchovies. Still, there are no real hotspots for albies on Cape Cod at this time. Where the bite may be excellent one day, it seems dissipates the next, leaving recreational anglers, charter captains, and the ever-growing fleet of kayak anglers on the hunt. In other words: don’t chase a report that’s a day or two old. Right now, it’s best to just get out there with a game plan to scope out past productive areas, and cover some water with your eyes peeled.
While there are great opportunities for bass and blues or albies and bones this week, it’s also time to start thinking about tautog. October and November tend to be the best time to target them due to lower boat traffic and diminished fishing pressure; however, it doesn’t hurt to pick up a bunch of green crabs and set up over rock piles in lower Buzzards Bay or Vineyard Sound, where albies tend to pop up somewhat reliably this time of year. Keep a few extra spinning rods rigged exclusively for albies with a variety of offerings; I like to keep one with an Albie Snax, one or two with epoxy jigs, and another with a good ol’ splasher-and-fly rig. Tog should be relatively shallow right now, so if you’re into fishing jigs over rigs, give it a go in 10 to 30 feet of water.
Here’s what our local shops and charters had to report heading into the weekend:
Connor Swartz at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay said the Canal has been fishing great for bass and bonito over the past four days. There are bonito on top every morning blitzing on silversides, and the shop weighed in an 8 pounder this morning. They’re hitting your standard heavy epoxy jigs, and smaller minnow plugs when the fish pop up a little closer to the rip rap. The average size of bass varies by the day, he said; it’s been schoolies some mornings and over-slot fish others, but this morning’s bite was mostly big fish hitting pencil poppers. While bonito action is reserved to the west end, the striper bite has been widespread, from the east end to the west end, and in the middle of the ditch. It’s all tide dependent. Later in the day, bass have shown preference for jigs, he added. Aside from silversides keeping bonito satiated, there are lots of squid in the east end, and schools of pogies and mullet have been spotted throughout the Canal. There are still no signs of albies in upper Buzzards Bay, but the lower bay around the Elizabeths has been giving up fish recently.
Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth said it’s been hard to pin down the albies whereabouts this week. There have been reports from customers catching them as shallow as 4 feet of water out in western Nantucket Sound, but there are lots of bonito and bluefish with them, and even some sea bass mixed in on the surface. Albies are also popping up over on the north side of the Vineyard from west chop and east, as well as along the sound side of the Elizabeth Islands. The feeds have been up and down quickly for the most part, so most of the reports he has received consist of only one or two fish before the disappear. Bonito, however, are still plentiful near Woods Hole and off the Vineyard’s north-facing beaches, so if you head out in search of bonito you stand a good chance of running into false albacore too. Evan added that he’s selling a lot of eels this week, and local shore fishermen are finding stripers off the south side while the boat guys are heading down the Elizabeths and finding some larger fish. He also said there’s been a huge increase in tautog action this week; he has sold tons of crabs and is restocking for the weekend. Most of the tautog reports are coming from the Elizabeth Islands and Woods Hole, and while the bite starts out a bit slow, chumming it up with discarded green crab legs seems to get them chewing.
From the Cape Cod Canal, East End Eddie Doherty reports: “Expert surfcaster “Bull” MacKinnon got into a topwater bite toward the beginning of last week that produced 4 striped bass weighing 18 to 21 pounds that attacked his 3-ounce Wally’s pencil on an early east tide, then added to his success on the weekend with 4 more bass, a bluefish and a couple of bonito. “Bustin’ Bob” Abreu reported that a 42-inch striper was caught on the Cape side the same day as the topwater breaks and Tony McCann was fishing a dropping minus east (breaking) tide when his lure was hit hard. The good-natured Easton resident had been bouncing a homemade 4-ounce white bucktail off the bottom that enticed a 48-inch striper that he brought to the rocks! “Adirondack Jim” Cromme, who usually has real bait on his hook, landed a 40-inch bass with a crippled herring on another breaking tide Wednesday. Glenn “Lucky Cigar” Lindsey did well that day dropping a big fish on the east flood tide, then hooking a fat 39-inch striper and a 38 incher with his Striper Gear pink Shaddy Daddy. The afternoon west tide gave up a hard fighting bonito that was fooled by his 3-inch slender silver metal lure and by dusk Glenn had a slot ready for the grill that had hit his bone Savage Sand Eel! The east dropping tide the next morning produced nice fish for many anglers including Norton’s Rob “Fishsticks” Pesa who reeled in a slot, a 34-inch striper and a bluefish on a 5-ounce white paddle tail. Anglers fishing around him also did well with multiple catches including some over 40 inches! Ben “The Potato Manager” Sivonen ended the weekend with a nice bonito on a Hogy white Epoxy jig during an afternoon rising east tide.
This Saturday, September 20, is the annual Canal Day at Buzzards Bay Park near the railroad bridge sponsored by the Cape Cod Canal Region Chamber of Commerce. There will be food trucks, entertainment including podcast host & former American Idol singer Ayla Brown, booths featuring famous surfcaster & professional photographer John Doble & his talented wife Karen as well as many more.”
Captain Ben Sussman of In The Net Sportfishing out of Osterville reported that albies and bonito were chewing good on Monday morning in his neck of the woods. His charter tallied 5 albies and 10 bonito all on epoxy jigs by 10 am when the albies seemingly shut off but remained in the area, and the bones continued to keep rods bent. Ben also found some stripers in the south side harbors that have been feeding on the outgoing tide this week, but the bite has been on and off. It’s a mixed class of fish—they’re either very small schoolies or in the 30-inch class. There are acres and acres of 5- to 6-inch peanut bunker for them to feed on, he said, and even though there aren’t a ton of bass, he’s been met with the best results on bucktail jigs and teasers.
Christian at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis told me they’ve been slammed this week as inshore fishing really took off. Striped bass, bluefish, bonito and albies have all put on the feed bags. There are bass in the harbors and bays, and bonito and albies ripping through bait schools out front in the Sound. He even got word from a friend that bonito have shown up in Cape Cod Bay; his buddy was fishing for stripers in Barnstable Harbor and wound up catching three bonito on small minnow plugs. Back on the south side, the albies seem to be a little bit smaller, but they’re being caught to the east and west of Hyannis in pretty consistent numbers on trolled minnow plugs and epoxy jigs when they come up to feed. And while the albies they’re seeing locally are not jumbos, anglers fishing the MV Derby have brought some exceptionally large specimens to the scales, so there’s a good chance you run into a trophy out in Natucket and Vineyard sounds. The bluefish are showing up in a range of sizes too, with 8-inch snappers abundant and a few gators up to 36 inches, which is great to see.
Captain Kurt Freund of Fishsticks Charters out of Vineyard Haven reported: “On Friday, I was one of four captains participating in the West Chop Classic, a small, friendly, but very competitive tournament with an elaborate scoring system which assigns varying numbers of points for each bluefish, bonito, bass, albacore, and other species, but deducts penalty points for each sea robin. My group of anglers consisted of Jack Hager, his brother Henry Hager, and friend Charlie Fitzsimmons. We got off to an early start, landing our first bonito before we even cleared the Eastville jetty and continued to find bonito at nearly every spot we tried throughout the day. Mixed in with the bonito were a bluefish and several black sea bass, but luckily, we avoided the sea robin penalty!
Sunday was the first day of the MV Derby, and as tradition dictates, I fished with Hans Riis and his son and my teammate, Jacob Riis, of Fishsticks with Charter Sauce. We caught bluefish, bonito and false albacore, along with a few black sea bass and scup. We even caught a northern puffer, the first I have caught since I was a kid, when we called them “blowfish.” Jacob was the first angler to weigh in an albie caught from a boat in this year’s Derby. As such, he was on top of the leader board, if only briefly.”
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Captain Drew Downing of Down East Charters in Chatham reported: “Transitional week in Chatham as bass fishing has become increasingly spotty and bonito are now pretty damn widespread. SOME albies, but definitely not consistent. Bird piles to the west of us hold snapper blues, bones, and albies at any given time. Look at the feeds to determine which species is present. They will all look a bit different when picking off bait. Continue to cover ground and hit all the likely haunts, and you will find some fish to play with.”
Captain Elena Rice of Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro reported: “What has been a bit of a challenging bluefin tuna season transformed into some peak excitement this week as Captain Bobby landed giants on his past four consecutive trips, including two beasts measuring 107” and 105”! The giant bite is hot and we hope to see this continue through the fall months. While big bluefin have been stealing the spotlight, the striped bass fishing is still very good too. We have been getting some really nice over-slot fish on topwater and vertically jigging as the tide swings towards artificial again, and away from live bait. We have upcoming openings for striper fishing listed here. Also a shoutout to all the other courteous anglers and boaters who were at the very busy Saquatucket boat ramp this past Sunday morning. It was congested for sure and it is understood that all present wanted to be to the tuna grounds ASAP! But everyone worked around each other in a respectful manner and I was super impressed. Cape Cod’s fishing community is awesome!”
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
For boat anglers, the best bet for action this weekend is running the south side of Cape in search of hardtails. Albies are popping up sporadically from Chatham to Falmouth, and there are fairly consistent reports of both albies and bones from Martha’s Vineyard to the Elizabeths. If you get out on the early side—meaning first light—be prepared for some potential topwater striper and bluefish action. And consider bringing some green crabs and lightweight jigs along to test the waters for early-fall tog.
Surfcasters and shore anglers should keep an eye on the wind direction as it relates to the tide, because a northeast blow from Friday through Saturday could push some quality bass in shallow along the beaches of Cape Cod Bay. Time your outing to fish into the onshore wind during a dropping tide, and you’ve got a recipe for a good striper bite. Needlefish, surface-swimming metal lips, minnow plugs, bucktails, and soft plastics like Slug-Gos and XL Albie Snax are all worthy of a place in your plug bag.
Shore anglers can also grind away for a shore-core or bonito in Vineyard Sound or Nantucket Sound, but the west end of the Canal is loaded with bones this week. Get down there before sunrise to secure a good spot along the rocks. Epoxy jigs and minnow plugs will do the job—just don’t leave your pencil poppers at home. With bunker and scant mullet running the ditch, there’s a good chance some big bass will continue to push through with the assistance of those E/NE winds.