Archive for the ‘Reports’ Category

May Striper fishing was nothing short of fantastic, and June has the potential to be one of the best months ever.  Cape Cod Bay has been absolutely loaded with Mackeral, Herring, Squid, and Sandeels, and it seems as if you can walk on the 32″-38″ Stripers that are chasing them.

Our “worst” trip so far this season had 10 keepers plus shorts, and we’ve had numerous trips with 20 and 30+ keepers.  I don’t know how long the mackeral will stay, but the normal trip has consisted of filling the livewell with macs and then using every single one for Bass.  While the livelining has been fun, we’ve also been doing very well vertical jigging with 12 lb spinnig outfits – 38″ bass on light tackle has been an absolute blast.

While the numbers of Stripers have been outstanding, June is the month when we start to see the real big girls.  The CC Canal and Buzzards Bay have been holding some real cows.  As this moon passes, look for the real bigs to migrate into the Bay.  The next two weeks should have some serious fish.

Good luck out there.

Cape Cod Bay is absolutely filled with Mackeral.  I think it might actually be possible to walk on them from the Canal all the way to Green Harbor.  With that, there are serious #’s of  Stripers in all the early season spots. 

Cod fishing was solid on our trips this week as well with a good mix of cod, haddock and redfish.  The Herring and Mackeral are stacked 25-30ft off the bottom on the SW Corner.  If the water temps stay down, we are setting up for an incredible opening to the Tuna season on June 1.

Well, looks like we did a terrible job of updating the site with 2011 fishing reports.  I did try to keep up with the Facebook site, as that is alot easier to log on and post photos, so that worth a look if you want to see what we’ve been up to. 

That said, 2011 was a fantastic season for Big Stripers in Cape Cod Bay. 

Still haven’t had time to really catch up on reports, but this one deserves its own post. 

Sunday, July 10th – Captain Don decided that he had run charters too many days in a row and needed a day off.  So he went to church and took his Grand-sons fishing at 9:30.  Great Day on the water.  His daughter Laura caught a few nice keepers, and Grand-son Jack (age 8  ) caught a few as well including his biggest fish to date – a 27.5 lb 45″ Striped-Bass. 

Could very well been our favorite trip of the season.

Well, Striper Fishing in the Bay has been outstanding.  Too tired to do a good job of updating the site regularly – but that’s a good thing.  We’ve been fishing nearly every day for the last month and a half, and Cape Cod Bay has treated our customers very, very well.  Will try to keep up with the pics and reports – check out our Facebook page as that is often easier and quicker to update.

Good luck out there.

Captain Don

June Striper fishing in Cape Cod Bay has been outstanding.  Save one afternoon trip with a nasty east wind, it has pretty well been limits and lots of releases on a daily basis.  We have been splitting our time fairly evenly between Billingsgate Shoal and Provincetown, as both areas are holding tremendous numbers of fish.  The middle of the bay has also been productive, as one afternoon we found acres of migrating Stripers on Top near the Fishing Ledge.  While most of our fishing has been trolling, we haven’t even had to break out the wire rigs once this year.  We’ve also seen far more surface feeding fish than usual, and have been able to break out the spinning gear on many occasions.  Monday, there were hoards of Bass on top,  and seemed like they were fighting each other for 9″ sluggos on top. 

There are no guarantees in fishing, but this is pretty darn nice right now..

Good luck,

-Captain Don

Friday’s good Striper fishing continued right through the weekend.  Saturday we started out by jigging up some Mackeral in front of the canal, but unfortunately the live bait bite wasn’t as good as Friday.  We ran down to Billingsgate and found good numbers of Bass right on the shoal. There was a very good bite on rigs, but since we had a family with four kids on board, we didn’t want to put out the wire.  This probably resulted in less overall fish than we could have had, but with a little extra time and switching a few things around, all the kids got plenty of fish.  Sometimes you have to give a little extra time, but you do what it takes to get the job done.

Sunday the bite on the Shoal was very good, and we got alot of fish with mini-rigs trolled on lead-core line.  The troll bite was constant, and lasted all morning – not sure of the fish count, but it was solid.  Right after the tide turned, all the fish came up and we put the troll rigs away for some light tackle casting.  Grabbed a bunch of fish on the spin gear, and even got a couple of nice ones on 12 lb test.  Just a great time with fish and birds busting all around the boat.

Back out there tomorrow with a morning and afternoon trip.  Give a call for availability – right now we’re booked 20 of the 30 days in June, but we definately have some afternoon trips available.

Striper Season in the bay is off to a great start.  The unbelievable 2 week blitz that occured in the canal got an aweful lot of press, and those fish have moved through and set up in their usual haunts in Cape Cod Bay.  All of the spring areas are holding fish – good numbers on Billingsgate and up at P-town, and lots of good fish feeding on the Mackeral Schools between Sandwich and Barnstable.

Friday morning we jigged up about 40 macs in 20 min right in front of the canal.  Made the quick run down to Barnstable for the outgoing tide.  The bite there has been very good, but we got chased out by all the schoolie bass (and a few small keepers).  We made the run out to one of our deeper water spots and found nice action with cookie-cutter 36″ fish.  Fun fishing, with the largest Bass of the day a tad over 40 inches.  Great morning on the water.

June’s New Moon is on Wednesday – look for the season’s first push of really Big Fish to come through mid-week.  The bait is there, and the timing is perfect for some great days.

Thursay – Saturday Report

This week’s Noreaster was a bit of a pain in that we had to cancel/reschedule a bunch of trips, but there were some good parts about it as well.  One – we needed a break, and as much as you don’t want to cancel any trips during the busy season, sometimes you just need sleep.  Second, a good noreaster can hit the “reset” button on the ocean by turning the water over, and getting the fish back on the feed.

The combination of the full moon and the Noreaster did just that as things picking back up and the Fall fishing conditions are just starting .

Thursday – we ran a 1/2 day Striper trip with a fun group from California that are spending the week on vacation in Orleans.  The week of North wind pushed a ton of bait onto the beach between Sandwich and Barnstable so it was nice to have good fishing with a very short run.  We ended up fishing the outer Channel at Barnstable, and there were big schools of Bass stacked up on the edges.  They were tight to the bottom, so we had to jig – but it was well worth it.  Customers got their limit and we released a bunch as well – overall a really fun afternoon.

Friday – We headed offshore with a 1/2 Tuna 1/2 Bass trip.  Commercial Striper season is over, so our bait guy is back in business.  It was nice to come down and have a keeper trap filled with live Pogies.  Got set-up on the Bank in an area with alot of bait and big marks on the machine – this was the best the Bank has looked in about a month.  On our second drift, we had a minke whale swim right through our balloons. In the middle of telling the customers that’s a good thing, the tuna hang with the whales, the long balloon went off.  Long story short, the Fish was a freight train, and dumped 2/3 of an 80 Wide with 40lbs of drag on the first run while we were backing down at about 6 knots.  Unfortunately, the fish chafed off on the leader.  Live by the light leaders – die by the light leaders – it was a heck of a ride while it lasted, good to have a real Giant on for a bit.  

That was our only tuna for the day – they guys really just wanted to bend some rods, so we headed in to the shoals to Bass fish.  We jigged up a few keepers, shorts, and big blues – overall not great fishing, but we made a day of it.

Sunday – Great trip with one of our favorite customers.  The Ruch family came back again this year on their annual trip from Buffalo, and we had a great day.  Last report I mentioned things lining up for the big bass run close to home, and they definately have.  We fished tight to the beach at Sandwich, in less than 20′ of water, and despite the crowd of knuckleheads, we had a great day.  10 good fish, and 4 were between 25 and 30 lbs (on a real scale – all the guestimates at the dock were alot more).  We also broke off 2 will keep me up at night for quite a while.  Overall the bite was slower than we expected, and alot of boats went home skunked. But given the number of fish on the screen when they turn on for real, it will be insane.

Big week of Striper fishing in Cape Cod Bay.  We were out straight this week, so this will be more of an overall recap as I don’t think I can keep the individual trips straight.  We ran doubles most days, and I believe the final tally was limiting out 7 out of 8 trips.  Most fish were in the 32″-40″ range with a few bigger ones sprinkled in and more schoolies than we could count.  For the most part, we fished Billingsgate shoals in the am, and then ran up to P-town for the afternoons.  Snapping wire was the ticket on the shoals, where the jigs definately outproduced the tubes.  However at P-town, the tubes were taking solid fish while the jiggers were stuck with mostly schoolies. 

One noteable catch this week was by Mike Gonsalves’s 11 year old son – his first ever Striper was 40″ and he did a great job landing it without any help from his dad.  Fishing was unreal that day, as we were marking schools 10′ deep that filled the fishfinder. 

Full disclosure, the 44lb cow that Jay is holding was not taken on the L-J.  Jay did an overnight trip with his buddy Eddie Gotovich on Ed’s Doghouse.  When Ed isn’t commercial bass fishing or solo tuna fishing, he fills in as a mate for us.  Whenever Ed decides to start chartering on his own, he’s going to fill up fast, because the guy catches.

Without being too specific, conditions are lining up for our local big bass run.  For our customers that have hit this with us in the past, give a call soon, as this is usually the best big fish time of the year in the bay.  No wire, just tubes, and lots of 40″ plus fish.

On the Tuna front, things have been slow.  We ran 2 trips this week with only 1 bite on a livie to show for it.  Last week we went long giving it a solid 12 hour effort with only the one hit to show for it.  We did have a few surface shots way east, but didn’t convert.  This past Saturday we had a 1/2 tuna 1/2 bass that turned quickly to bass as Stellwagon seemed like a dead zone.

Moving forward, the combo of this Noreaster and the Moon should get things turned back on, and we’re confident that the Fall Fishing will be outstanding.  In the meantime, east of the bank is covered in sharks, so these are a great option for people that want to bend the heavy tackle quickly.

Overall, fishing has been extremely consistent.  If this is the Summer slowdown, I can’t wait for the September runs.

Good luck out there.