Cape Cod Fishing Report July 18

We got a late start today due to 25mph winds overnight. Nevertheless I had a good feeling about this quick morning trip.

I had my other cousin Kevin with me today. Kev is always good on the boat and has been with me during some of the most epic trips of my life. Basically he is good luck!

We hit up a close to shore spot where the bass have been congregating each morning this week. Sure enough at around 5AM we began marking bass right along the bottom.

I made a quick adjustment to our tube and worm rigs and we soon were able to put a nice bend in the rod. Actually, that first bend turned into 2 bends – doubles! Then those 2 bends turned into 3 bends – triples!

Unfortunately we ended up losing that third bass but luckily were able to boat both the other stripers. The two fish were nearly identical and were obviously part of the same year class.

We continued trolling the tubes down deep right along the bottom. I could see on the sonar that the bass were on the feed. We had big blue masses of bait under us with orange arches zipping through the madness. All fantastic signs.

About 20 minutes or so after tripling up we had that awesome sound of the clicker going off. Fish on!

I hopped on the rod this time and fought hard against a feisty bass. Some fish seem to have a little extra gusto and this was certainly one of them. Luckily I got the best of him and soon had another healthy 25 pounder in the boat.

Kevin and I worked hard and covered a lot of water over the next 3 hours. We boated numerous recreational keepers up to 33 inches and a stray bluefish.

To our dismay we also managed to drop a few nice bass that absolutely ripped drag from the Penn 113′s. One bass in particular hit so hard that the lead core line parted mid way through a color. Obviously there was some sort of defect in the line because I had just respooled with fresh leadcore last night – oh well!

We continued to work the area and were able to put another 25 pounder in the boat. We were marking a stray fish here or there – some of which looked to have had some serious size to them.

And then it happened…

With the sun high in the sky we headed out into deeper water hoping to cap off the trip with one last big fish. We found some bait out deep and then found some of those glorious orange arches darting in and out of the clouds of bait.

Like clockwork the starboard side rod doubled over. I hopped on the rod and fought the fish for a good 5-10 minutes. Man did this guy fight well. Both Kevin and I gasped (yes – gasped!) when we saw the bass surface close to the Miss Loretta.

In the boat I estimated her to be at 40-45 pounds.

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Of course the fish didn’t end up weighing that much. I guess my fish gauge eyes were off today. Either way the bass weighed in at 39 pounds which is fine by me.

I felt like we made the most of an abbreviated outing today. Like always I will be looking forward to getting back out there – hopefully in a few hours if the T-storms hold off.

The key today was getting the tube down to where the bass were at. Most of the bass we caught and marked today came at depths greater than 30 feet. Getting the tubes down that deep can be a challenge, so if you’d like a helping hand please check out the below video.

I forgot to remove the protective casing so you’ll have to turn the volume way up!