Well it is now officially autumn and right now is a great time to start fishing Cape Cod's many beaches and estuaries. Â As the water cools and the days get shorter, the fishing along the beachfront, inside estuaries and outside creek mouths heats up. Â This is a great time of the year to surf cast Cape Cod.
The other day I waited out the rain and headed down to one of my favorite estuaries for the outgoing tide. Â The plan was to cast and drift eels, but that changed once I noticed fish popping around on the surface.
The terns were working as fish occasionally sprayed bait along the beachfront to the north and south of the inlet. Â The baby pogies were present which usually translates into some fun top water action, so the eels would have to wait until another day.
On my second cast out into the current I noticed a swirl right behind my small plug. Â Then within an instant WHACK! Â a small, perfect tuna bait size bluefish came hurdling out of the water and smashed the plug.
Unfortunately the hooks didn't get him so I continued to "walk the dog" with the plug a few more yards.  Sure enough the super aggressive blue came back for seconds and walloped the small plug with a vicious surface strike.  Fish on!
The small blue managed to pull a little line from my ultra-light spinning setup and put a nice solid bend in the rod. Â He was no 40 pound striper but honestly, I find this type of fishing just as much fun and super relaxing. Â It's simple fishing that anyone can be a part of which is great.
After catching a few more perfect tuna bait size bluefish I tied on a slightly bigger pencil popper (the Cotton Cordell I used so much back in the spring) with the hopes of targeting one of the bass I had seen breaking a bit farther from shore.
Small schools of around 10 or so stripers would gang up on the baby pogies and push them towards the surface. Â In an instant a flock of terns would be right above them, dive bombing the unfortunate little bait fish.
The Cotton Cordell pencil popper was a bit larger than the present bait but the bass didn't care one bit. Â It wasn't long until a healthy schoolie gulped down the popper. Â Fish on!
By the time I released the little guy the bass had ventured much closer to shore and were actually swirling around just a few yards from my feet. Â They would cruise into and out of the current and then push bait up along the shoreline to the north and south of the creek mouth.
There were also small schools of bass just calmly cruising around in shallow water along the edge of the current. Â I would cast my plug towards them and as soon as the plug hit the water they would "spook" and dart off in every direction. Â It seemed like some bass were on the feed while others were just taking it easy.
Every few casts I would hook another small bass on the top water, which was just enough to keep me interested.
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The action slowly died down as the outgoing tide slowed.  I definitely think the best time for top waters at this specific estuary is the first part of the outgoing tide.
I'll be looking forward to returning to this spot at night with eels this October and trying for a much bigger fish. Â I do know of one 60 pound bass that was caught just outside this estuary back when I was only 10 years old, which tells me that big fish do on occasion venture into this area.
Will those big bass come within casting range from the shore this fall? Â Your guess is a good as mine but I'll be looking forward to finding out!
Click here for more information on fishing the Cape's estuaries- good luck!
Tight lines,
Ryan
