Torrential rain and heavy wind is a good way of describing conditions this morning at the Cape Cod Canal. I almost felt foolish as I stood there on the rocks, getting pelted in the face by wind whipped H20.
Nevertheless I felt like my chances at connecting with a decent bass were pretty good. I knew there was a large biomass of fish somewhere in Buzzards Bay, just waiting to push through. Would today be the day they decided to make their move? Only time would tell.
By 5AM the fishing had gotten off to a slow start, and I was beginning to feel a little soggy, despite the rain gear.
3:30AM wake ups were beginning to catch up to me. I could not help but envision going to back to sleep in my warm bed. I had a few hours before I would officially "start my day." The question was how I wanted to spend the time - fishing or sleeping?
The answer was obvious. I was down here so I might as well make the most of it. With a quick change of attitude I decided to get my butt off my rock and continue casting.
I feel like you always have a good chance at the Canal, even when conditions aren't ideal, and the fish are not showing on the surface. At any moment and on any cast a big bass could appear out of nowhere and inhale your bait or plug.
Sometimes just the thought of this is enough to get a weary angler off a rock and back into casting mode. For me this is always the case.
By now the sky had brightened and I could easily see up and down the length of the Canal. With the exception of a few guys here and there the Canal was for the most part devoid of other anglers. Having space to yourself is the main benefit of fishing in horrendous conditions. As I looked up and down the rip-rap, I got to thinking that the rain and wind was not that bad after all.
It pains me to admit it, but I did not fish the Canal yesterday with one of my homemade plugs. The batch of homemade pencil poppers Mazzola and I spun 3 years ago are finally start to show their age. The plugs are really beat up to say the absolute least.
A beat up plug will still catch fish just as well as a new one, however a beat up plug is more apt to wobble mid-cast. If your plug wobbles mid cast, you are going to lose a ton of distance, and casting distance is often the most important factor to catching a big bass at the Canal.
Despite the wind I was able to reach the center of the Canal on most casts yesterday. I have to credit this to the J.Koder pencil popper pictured below. It looks nice (especially compared to one of my beat up homemade plugs) but most importantly it casts well.
By 5:30AM the wind was still howling but the rain had subsided. There were still no signs of life in the form of bass busting, birds diving or bait spraying. Yet I just kept on casting, hoping that a good size fish would appear out of nowhere, and crush my pencil popper.
Around 5:45AM I took advantage of a short lull in the breeze, wound up, and fired what had to be my best cast of the day far off into the Canal. The plug landed with a solid thud and was immediately pushed towards the east by the strong flood tide. I started dancing the plug back and forth with light twitches of the rod, eagerly awaiting and silently praying for something to happen.
The wind quickly picked back up, further accelerating the plug's eastward movement down the Canal. I was still twitching my rod tip, but really just allowing the plug to move along on its own, pushed by the current and wind. As the plug passed directly in front of me, 200 feet out, a large swirl appeared just behind the pencil.
"Eat it!" I recall yelling out into the wind. Just then the bass lunged forward and smashed the pencil, sending whitewater into the air and creating a SMACK! that I swear echoed off the bridge abutments.
For a second I felt weight on the rod but I resisted setting the hook, for fear of pulling the plug away from the bass before the fish really had a good hold of the lure. I let the plug float for one more moment, gave one more twitch of the rod and watched as the bass turned and sucked down the pencil off the surface.
I could now feel the full weight of the bass on the line. I reeled up tight and set the hook into what I knew was a good fish. Feeling the sting the big striper took off, stripping line from my reel as he headed east with the current.
I could immediately tell that this was a good fish. With each pump of his tail he pulled more line from my reel, against a a drag that was set relatively tight.
With a strong current at his back, I had no choice but to chase down this fish before he snapped me off on a jagged rock or sharp barnacle.
I headed down current as quickly as I could, in pursuit of what felt like my best fish of the season.
