 |
 |
 |
What a great sight!
We had another real fun morning today striped bass fishing Cape Cod. I had two friends with me today, a local Cape Codder Brian and Jim – a native New Englander who now resides in Chicago. With all the good reports from this past week we all were hoping for some good action.
Luckily we were not disappointed!
The morning started off just like the past few trips aboard the Miss Loretta. We headed out to the local mackerel hot spots with the intention of jigging up enough live macks to get us through a morning of live-lining.
The mackerel bite this morning was even better than earlier in the week. Without exaggeration it took less than 2 minutes to catch a half dozen mackerel. Another 20 minutes of jigging produced more than enough mackerel to get us through the rest of the fishing excursion.
If only the mackerel bite would remain this solid for the entire summer season! Who knows maybe this will be the year that it does. Usually the mackerel bite slows considerably once June arrives, so we will just have to cross our fingers and wait to see what happens. All I can say right now is that if you are looking for mackerel then there is no better time than now to get out there.
With a chock full live well we made our way east towards perennial big fish hot spots. It’s only a matter of time until the real big bass (25 pounds and up) move into these areas. Just like the last trip these spots were devoid of bass life. Not a big deal though and after a little while of trying we reeled up the lines and continued our trek eastward.
High tide today was around 8AM, which was not ideal for what we had in mind for this trip. Seems like the best bite as of late has come during the last part of the outgoing. Nevertheless we remained optimistic that we would eventually be able to make it happen at some point this morning.
Out came the light tackle setups and I rigged the guys up with fresh macks. These macks seemed extra feisty today and we had a hard time initially distinguishing a bass take from an overly energetic mack. Add in a little wind and current, and detecting bites became that much more of a challenge.
Brian with a beauty of a bass.
After making a few drifts Brian hooked up with the first bass of the day. Nothing humongous but a great start to the trip. Brian has some experience fishing this area with this technique, so he was able to quickly get this bass to the boat. Another keeper bass in the 30-34 inch range – not complaining one bit.
We kept experimenting with hook placement and different drifts all morning until we finally nailed down a productive drift route and technique. After Brian boated a few more nice bass it was Jim’s turn to get in on the action.
Jim drove all the way from Chicago to fish the Canal and Cape Cod Bay. I like this guy’s dedication and determination. He was able to land a few nice stripers during last week’s Canal action and there was no doubt in my mind that he would land a few nice ones today.
Jim’s first bass put up a great fight in the strong current and windy conditions. A few deep breaths and maneuvers around the boat and he had his first ever Cape Cod Bay striped bass.
A very happy Jim with the biggest bass of the day – a chunky 36 incher.
The wind picked up a bit as the morning progressed into afternoon and so did the action. We had a steady diet of bites and runs, however hooking the fish proved difficult. I’d say we hooked 1 out of every 4 bites on the macks.
Unfortunately that’s just a part of fishing with such big baits. These mackerel are average over a foot in length, which is a real mouthful for a lot of the bass off Cape Cod right now.
I think if all these fish were 20 pounds and up our hook up ratio would improve dramatically. But like I said before – we aren’t complaining!
Finally towards the end of the trip we ran out of live macks. We did have plenty of freshly dead mackerel so we opted for giving those guys a try.
The bass seemed indifferent to whether our baits were alive or dead. I think our hook up ratio actually improved a little once we switched to the dead stuff. One of our last drifts of the day produced a nice double header – a great way to end the trip.
The bass fishing is pretty good right now off Cape Cod. Hopefully it’ll hold strong for a long time.
There’s plenty of bait around which is a great sign of things to come. For more information on this trip and how things are looking right now off Cape Cod, click here.
Tight lines and take care,
Ryan