Cape Cod Fishing Report
Spring fishing is heating up. About 75% of Cape Cod’s kettle ponds have been stocked with trout, chain pickerel are chewing hard before spawning, and largemouth bass anglers have seen a dramatic improvement in the bite since last week.
Largemouth are transitioning out of their winter patterns and while bottom baits like jigs and Neds have produced some nice fish this week, big bass are showing a willingness to chase down moving baits like glidebaits and chatterbaits. Shallow ponds with plentiful vegetation are warming quicker than the kettle ponds and as a result, the bass in these smaller bodies of water have become increasingly active. OTW’s Jimmy Fee landed his first quality bass of the year from a kayak earlier this week while casting a chatterbait over shallow grass. Pickerel were pouncing on his bladed jig for most of the outing until the 6.03-pound largemouth (shown below) intercepted it, solidifying his 1st place position in the OTW Office Bass Tournament.
Trout fishing has been lights out since the stocking trucks began making rounds. But even “holdover” trout—fish that were stocked last spring or fall—are aggressively feeding. In a pond that had not yet been stocked this spring, I had a nice-sized rainbow follow and crush a Z-Man Chatterbait at my feet while casting around a deep ledge for largemouth a few days ago. There’s a first time for everything, I guess.
Fresh stockers, on the other hand, are providing fast action in the kettle ponds. After being raised in pools and tanks, they often swim in schools as they acclimate to their new open-water environments. Shore and kayak fishermen who cover water and locate groups of trout are catching them by the dozen on spoons, spinners, jerkbaits, and soft plastics.
One of our readers and a previous contributor to On The Water, Jonathan Parsons (author of “Fishing Soft Plastics for Trout“), provided some helpful tips based on his experience this week. “I fished an Upper Cape pond on Saturday (p.m.). Trout were still schooled up from recent stockings and very aggressive. I caught ~15+ browns and 5 rainbows, and saw lots of rising trout, too,” said Parsons. However, he seemed to be the only one catching, and offered the following pieces of advice:
- Distance is key: You don’t need super high-end gear for stocked trout, but you do need to be able to reach the fish to catch them. Any kind of waders will work fine, but if you have uninsulated waders—layer up and use toe warmers or you’ll be leaving early with numb toes. The water is still cold.
- Long rods, long-stroke spools (in Shimano, that’s Ultegra, Stradic, etc.), thin braid, fine-diameter leader (fluoro or mono), and tungsten jigheads all help casting distance with small soft plastics. Save the 5-foot rods for stream fishing, fishing PowerBait on bottom, or trolling from boats.
- Presentation: Generally, low and slow is best for early spring trout, but most of these trout on Saturday were above some clingy weeds and grass. The trick was to work the plastics just fast enough to stay above the weeds. Vary your retrieve to see what the fish respond to. In this case, a hop, hop, pause & glide retrieve worked best. 90% of the trout hit on the “pause & glide”. If you fish too slowly, you’ll be dragging weeds. If you tie on something heavy (like a 1/2-ounce Acme Kastmaster) to compensate for not being able to reach the fish, you’re either dragging weeds or fishing too fast to stay above the weeds.
- Light Line & Leader: Stocked trout aren’t the smartest fish in the world, but they’ll take a size 22 fly, so they do have good eyesight. Most of the time, I’m fishing 4-pound-test for stocked trout (braid/leader or even straight mono). If there’s no wind at all and gin-clear water, you can usually catch a few on straight 2-pound mono (Maxima Ultragreen) when nothing else works. When the broodstock trout are stocked (usually ~May 1), I will upsize. But, right now, light line gets more bites and helps reach those trout that are further from shore.
One would think that casting to stocked, hatchery-raised fish should equate to lock-and-load fishing, but that’s not always the case. Clear water and increased fishing pressure can lead to a challenging (and frustrating) outing. Pick up a light 7-foot spinning rod and 1000- to 2500-size reel, scale down your line and leader material, and if the fish are not responsive, change up your presentations and play around with different retrieves.
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
It overjoys me to say that this time next week, we’ll be two days into the spring tautog season! But, just because the season is open doesn’t necessarily mean the shallow water bite will start strong. Water temperatures are still very cold—around 41 degrees according to NOAA Station BZBM3 in Woods Hole. I don’t wait for the dandelions to bloom to start fishing, though. As water temps approach the 45- to 50-degree range, I’ll start shopping around for green crabs. Inlet jetties are great places to drop a jig or rig in search of your first tog of the year. The bites will be subtle, so use a sensitive 7′ to 7’6″ medium-heavy inshore rod with some backbone. There are quality tog to be caught in early to mid April as they move in from offshore structure.
The spring largemouth bite on Cape is off to a good start and it’s only going to get better as the weather improves, ponds heat up, and more river herring arrive. Now is the time to start throwing wakebaits, glidebaits, and large soft plastic swimbaits to bass that are looking for big panfish and scout herring. Ian McPartland of Goose Hummock Shops spotted some scouts trickling in this week, so let’s hope for a strong showing as we head into April. To increase your chances of encountering a 5-pound-plus fish, focus on fishing in the afternoon or evening on sunny days, or fishing after dark when overnight temps surpass 40 degrees. Keep an eye out for diving ospreys, which can clue you into the presence of river herring or big panfish transitioning into shallower water.
Trout fishing will also be a great option for the next few weeks as the stocking trucks continue to hit Cape ponds.
3/19/2026
It may not feel like spring yet, but with just a day until the vernal equinox, warmer days and better fishing opportunities are around the corner.
This week, freshwater anglers have reason to rejoice. After some wind and rain, the ice is gone and right on schedule, the state began stocking our kettle ponds with trout earlier this week. We’ve got freshly stocked brown, rainbow, and eastern brook trout available on Cape Cod as of today. Check out the MA Trout Stocking Report to see which ponds (and species) have been stocked in your area thus far.
Despite the ice melting, the weather has remained uncomfortably windy and cold since the weekend. We need a few warm nights in the 40s to get our local largemouth chewing, but the advanced forecast is not looking great. That’s not to say the bass won’t be prowling the shallows over the next week or so, the action will just be slow. Long nights spent casting wakebaits and swimbaits may yield a decent fish or two, but be aware that it’s going to be a high effort/low reward type of bite until overnight temps crest 40 degrees. The better bet for fast action is to hit bog ponds—which will be the first to heat up—in the late afternoon after some sunny weather. Soaking live shiners is not a bad game plan, although you run the risk of being plagued by pickerel. Until the ponds warm up a bit, casting suspending jerkbaits, small chatterbaits, jigs, Ned rigs, and finesse swimbaits will help largemouth fishermen to weed out the slime darts.
In other news, the first ospreys of 2026 have reached Cape Cod! It’s almost like they have a circadian rhythm that tells them when the trout stocking trucks are making their rounds.
Plus, the first reports of river herring in the Middleborough run came in late last week. Just a few scouts were spotted heading upstream, but it’s a start. It’s about time we start to check our local herring runs here on Cape Cod. I scoped out a couple runs in Falmouth this week but didn’t see any signs of life. Another week or so and we should see them begin to trickle in. Let’s hope for a strong push in early to mid April to get our resident stripers fired up.
Speaking of April, which is less than 2 weeks away, start prepping your tautog fishing gear. The spring tog season opens on April 1, and although the early season bite can be very challenging, there will be fish moving into shallow water—meaning 10 feet or less. When they do, shore anglers will have good opportunities to catch their first saltwater fish of the year by hitting upper and mid Cape jetties in Buzzards Bay and Nantucket Sound.
We’ll be resuming our weekly Cape Cod fishing reports on Thursday, April 2. If you’d like to share a report or photo of a recent catch with us for consideration in the weekly Cape report, feel free to email me at mhaeffner@onthewater.com.
For now, we have plenty of stocked trout, bass, and pickerel to cast to. Get out there this weekend to wet a line and if nothing else, enjoy the open water and upper-40-degree temps. Proper spring is near. Hang tight, folks.
3/12/2026
After some refreshingly mild weather this week, blankets of old snow have almost completely melted off and the ice on our freshwater lakes and ponds has taken a big hit. In some places it has melted off completely, while others have patchy open water. The salt ponds and brackish ponds are completely thawed, so I was able to strap up the waders and cast for white perch earlier this week, but I came up empty. It was nice to be out enjoying some extra daylight after work, but spring hasn’t “sprung” just yet.
We’ve left the ice fishing season in the rearview, although anglers may have to deal with some skim ice in the near future. The extended forecast shows overnight temps dipping below freezing on and off over the next couple weeks. The long, slow transition to true spring continues.
As the ice on the ponds disappears, Mass DFW will be looking to begin the spring trout stocking. There’s no set-in-stone start date, but southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod tend to be the first areas with open water, so keep an eye on the MA Trout Stocking Report which, once stocking begins, is typically updated daily at midnight. I’d be willing to bet the first stocking trucks will be out doing their duty by early next week.
Trout fishing will be the easier, more accessible option for freshwater anglers in the coming weeks. Largemouth and smallmouth bass will be slower to transition into their spring feeding patterns due to snowmelt runoff and skim ice keeping water temperatures on the cold side. If and when there is open water on your neighborhood bass pond, there are a few baits to keep handy for coldwater largemouth. Suspending jerkbaits, jigs, small chatterbaits and underspins, and finesse swimbaits (3 inches or less) are the first lures I throw for bass in the early spring. Later on, as temps rise and the bass become more active, lipless and squarebill crankbaits, spinnerbaits, larger chatterbaits, wakebaits and glidebaits are all good choices. Once the river herring start to trickle in and the water is a bit warmer, bass will be patrolling the shallows for big baits.
For trout, spoons, inline spinners, small jerkbaits, hair jigs, micro soft plastics, and good ol’ PowerBait will all work fine. If you want to have a little more fun with the stockies, break out a 3wt to 5wt fly rod and cast nymphs, small streamers like Woolly and Krystal Buggers, or classic dry fly patterns like Elk Hair Caddis and Parachute Adams. The fresh stockies shouldn’t be too difficult to dupe.
We’re on our way to warmer days; Mother Nature is just testing our patience. Hang in there, keep an eye on the conditions of your local water, and check the trout stocking report regularly to get in on the action once MA DFW starts loading the ponds.
3/5/2026
The thaw continues.
Despite a couple of cold nights and mornings, the ice is slowly but surely melting. Earlier this week, local anglers took what may have been their last steps on the ice this winter, or at least until late next week, when temperatures dive back into the 20s and 30s.
Jack Renfrew reported 10 to 12 inches of ice on a pond in Sandwich early Wednesday, of which six were soft white ice over hard, clear ice. He caught a nice mix of trout, bass, and white perch on traps and jigs. However, he noted there was about 2 inches of water on top. With some rain on the way and temperatures forecasted to climb to 50 degrees in some areas of the Cape this weekend, Jack recommended steering clear of the ice early next week.
Paul Caruso, who sent in photos of a couple nice 4- and 5-pound brown trout he caught on Cape ice this week, said he also had about 12 inches of ice on Monday morning (3/2), but he hasn’t been out since then. He, too, is confident the ice will be taking a big hit due to this “warm” weather we’re experiencing. At the time of this writing, the weather forecast shows 40-degree temps all weekend and a high of 50 degrees in Falmouth on Tuesday! After the winter we’ve had, that’s almost flip-flops and t-shirt weather. Almost.
On the last day of February, before more this mild weather took hold with the arrival of March, OTW’s Johnny McIntyre and Anthony DeiCicchi took a short drive over the Canal to hunt for smallmouth bass and they were handsomely rewarded. Johnny said they were fishing roughly 30 feet of water with micro Ned rigs, small tube jigs, and metals. He added that there were roughly 8 inches of ice and some densely-packed snow on top, which melted into slush throughout the day. Again, this was five days ago, so it’s safe to assume there has been a fair amount of melting since then.
Here’s the rundown from a few of our local tackle shops:
AJ Coots at Red Top Sporting Goods in Buzzards Bay reported that the ice is starting to melt, but the puddles we’re seeing on top are mostly due to packed-down snow melting off first. There’s still some safe ice, although he recommended exercising caution if you’re considering going out this weekend. Temps will be in the mid to upper 40s, and rain doesn’t help anything, so we’ll see how long the ice lasts. The shop had reports of pickerel, trout, and a whole lot of perch coming through the ice earlier this week. Bass reports, on the other hand, have been a little quiet. AJ added that they received a delivery of live shiners yesterday (Wednesday), so they should be in good shape for the weekend.
Evan at Eastman’s Sport and Tackle in Falmouth had just returned from vacation when we spoke, so he hasn’t heard much about the local ice scene but he does have a few dozen live shiners available, which will go quickly in the coming days. He mentioned that some folks are having trouble accessing spots due to mounds of snow in roadside pull-offs and small parking areas, but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue going forward with rain and mild temps in the forecast.
Christian at Sports Port Bait and Tackle in Hyannis told me that shiner sales have slowed down quite a bit due to the ice conditions starting to get a little dicey. Prior to recent melting though, the action had been outstanding for just about any species one can target. He anticipates a few more days of fishable ice, maybe through the weekend, before it gets flat-out hazardous. Swing by the shop this weekend for bait if you’re planning to sneak in an ice fishing trip before conditions become questionable.
Cape Cod Fishing Forecast
Cape Cod ice fishermen are ending our winter season on a high note with some big smallies, white perch, and trout. We’ve got at least another couple of days on the ice, but keep in mind that each body of water is different, and some areas may be less safe than others. Stick to shaded coves and near-shore spots if you’re planning to wet a line in the coming days. Be careful around the edges especially, as they are the first areas to experience significant melting. After this weekend, it’d be very wise to stay off the ice or keep a close eye on its thickness. We’re due for another drop in temperatures by the end of next week. Will the ice remain thick enough to fish through after this warmup, or will we be plagued by skim ice? Time will only tell.
I’d like to say that wading season is around the corner, but with the up-and-down weather forecast, there’s no telling when we’ll have open water. My hope is that by the time the last of the ice melts, we should be just a few days to a week out from the spring trout stocking.