For striped bass, as well as summer vacationers, Falmouth, Massachusetts is usually part of the journey, rather than the destination. While the town’s population swells threefold in the summer, many more tourists simply pass through on their way to the Woods Hole Ferry Terminal and Martha’s Vineyard. Stripers also tend to be passing through in the spring, feeding briefly in town waters before continuing toward Monomoy to the east or Cape Cod Bay to the north.
Yet Falmouth borders three major bodies of water, Buzzards Bay, Vineyard Sound, and Nantucket Sound while containing several salt ponds and sharing Waquoit Bay with Mashpee. There’s rich striper habitat here, and a strong fishing tradition.
Falmouth doesn’t wear its fishing culture on its sleeve like the Vineyard or the towns down Cape, but, like the stripers swimming through the town’s waters, it’s there if you look hard enough. You’ll see it in the surf rods tucked into landscaping vehicles, in the engraved stripers on the public chess board on Main Street, and you’ll even hear it in the chatter in line at Pie In The Sky (though fishermen waiting 20 minutes for an $8 cup of coffee tend to be albie guys). Plus, it’s also the only town I know of with an actual festival dedicated to the striped bass every September.
The most obvious striper-fishing landmark within the town limits is Nobska Lighthouse, the 150-year-old beacon overlooking the confluence of Vineyard and Nantucket sounds. Boat fishermen drift the rips there with large, legal-sized scup and surf fishermen work the rocks below with bait and lures. The town’s other striper spots are the shoals of its southern coast: Middle Ground, L’Hommedieu, and Hedge Fence. When the tide is running, they form rips, overwhelming the squid, sand eels, and butterfish that had hoped to make an uneventful passage through Vineyard Sound.
» Read More: Fishing Shallow Rips
Better still, seven public boat ramps from Green Pond to Megansett Habor provide quick access to the more storied striper waters like the Elizabeth Islands, Buzzards Bay, and the west end of the Cape Cod Canal.
Like any good striper town, Falmouth has its share of fishing folk heroes, like the “Falmouth Fishing Doctors,” a trio of medical professionals known for their tireless pursuit of striped bass between shifts; there’s mustachioed charter captain Dave Peros, whose artful approach to striper fishing with flies and wooden plugs is right at home along the Elizabeth Islands; and there’s Jim “Bird Dog” Travers, a colorful fixture at Falmouth Harbor whose personal migration brings him here from the south every spring. I certainly can’t forget On The Water Media, which grew out of the Falmouth Enterprise in 1996 to cover the mighty striped bass and the fishermen who pursue them.
For local bait, you’ll find Eastman’s Sport and Tackle on the way to Falmouth Main Street, with Evan—the fourth generation of Falmouth’s tackle-selling Eastmans—at the counter. Since 1988 it’s functioned as the town’s striper hub, selling bucktails, parachute jigs, and bait to the wire-line-trolling and bunker-chunking charter and commercial fleet.
Today, those lures have given up some in-shop real estate to epoxy jigs and Albie Snax—a symptom of the Falmouth fisherman’s shifting focus from stripers to albies, but make no mistake, the striper fishermen are still here. On May evenings, you’ll find them stalking the Great Pond looking for cinder worms; on June mornings, you’ll see them launching at the Falmouth Harbor ramp; and on dark July nights, you’ll hear their boats as they pass Nobska Point, bound for Quick’s Hole.
