Cape Cod Fishing Report

This bruiser bass absolutely hammered a poor little tinker mackerel.

I love writing a productive Cape Cod fishing report – hopefully it lasts all season!

I met up with Dick, Tim and Beth this morning at 4AM.  We cruised out onto Cape Cod Bay and were greeted by flat calm conditions and a gorgeous sunrise – a great start to the trip.

We headed east down the coast, the crew taking in the scenery and yours truly studying the fish finder.  We cruised for about 10 miles until we reached an area that has been producing stellar mackerel fishing for us all season long.

The sabiki rigs went into the water and within 10 seconds we had a full stringer of tinker macks dangling from the hooks.  It only took us about 20 minutes to load up the live well with close to 50 tinkers.  2012 has, without a doubt,  been the best year for mackerel I have quite possibly ever seen.

Midway through the mackerel jigging we had a nice big school of bruiser bass pass beneath the boat.  As would be expected the macks disappeared momentarily as the bass passed beneath us.  Unfortunately we were not able to capitalize on this striper surprise but it was certainly a good sign of things to come.

We transported the macks back in towards shore with plans of drifting the tinkers for whatever stripers may be cruising through the area.  Our first couple of drifts produced a few swings and misses as the crew became accustomed to the live mack technique.

After 30 minutes without a boated fish I was starting to think about other options.  The tide was slowing down so I figured we would stick it out and see what happened during the incoming.

Once the tide began flowing in the bass appeared virtually out of nowhere.  We began marking on the sonar and soon the guys were hooked up – what a relief!

ZzzzZzzzzz! Tim was the first to hook up (I think) and he did a great job of handling the first keeper of the day.  The fish fought much better than his size (33 or so inches) and really took off once he saw the boat.  All in all a real healthy fish and great way to start the morning.

Cape Cod Fishing report | Best action on the incoming tide

Tim battling a nice bass.

The action really heated up as the tide began to move.  For the next few hours we hooked up at least once during each drift.  The bass would on occasion come right up to the surface to slam a tinker.  If they didn’t nail the mack on the surface they would engulf it right off the bottom.  The sonar was lit up with marks of bait and bass – good thing we decided to stick around!

By 8AM we had already hit double digits with no signs of slowing up.  I’m really enjoying this fast action because I know that sooner or later I am bound to have a slow striped bass fishing charter.  Might as well enjoy it while we have it.

Dick, Beth and Tim were all now hooking bass with consistency.  We even had a few double hook ups which is always a blast.

Most of the fish before 8:30AM were in the 26 – 35 inch range.  Not bad at all but we were all hoping that eventually a cow would hammer one of our tinkers.

Around 9AM Beth’s rod doubled over and she almost fell right on the deck as a real nice bass screamed drag from her reel.  Could this be the big fish the crew was eagerly waiting for?

The bass ripped a good 40 or so yards of braid from her reel before she was able to turn him.  We could tell right away this was a nice bass from the size of the tail flapping around the surface.  Beth was extremely excited as was I and the rest of the crew.  It took a little bit but she was eventually able to get the bass to the boat.

When I lifted the fish into the boat everyone went a little crazy.  It wasn’t a 50 pounder but for this crew it didn’t matter one bit.

Beth with a healthy 42 inch striped bass.

After a few hugs and high fives the crew was back at it.  We continued repeating the same drift and were able to consistently elicit strikes from the stripers that paved the bottom beneath us.  Everyone continued getting bit, including Dick who scheduled this particular trip.  Dick, f you’re reading this Cape Cod fishing report thanks again for coming out!

Even though we had plenty of live macks left in the tank Dick opted to fish dead whole macks along the bottom.  For a while the dead macks actually outproduced the live macks.  Dick managed to scrum up a few 20 pounders off the bottom using the technique.

Dick with a nice 20 pound fish that sucked down a dead mackerel.

The fast action continued as the tide reached high.  By 11AM we had caught somewhere in the vicinity of 25 – 30 bass, the vast majority of which were keeper size.

With time running out Tim surprised me by hooking up with one final bass.  Of course this last fish fought better than any bass we had previously caught!  It gave Tim a good run-around as is evident in the below video.

Today was just an awesome day on the Bay and I can’t wait to get out there again and write up another fishing report.

I’m hoping the consistent fishing will continue throughout the summer.  However there’s really no way to know for sure.  Only time will tell.

In the mean time if you’d like to learn more about where to find good action in Cape Cod Bay, check out the Extended Report by clicking here.

Best of luck if you are able to get out fishing this week.  It looks like it’s going to get real warm out starting tomorrow, so what better place is there to be than on the water fishing.

Good luck, tight lines and go get ‘em!

Ryan

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