July 19 - Chatham
Chatham is an awesome Cape Cod town. The place has great bars, phenomenal ice cream, great white sharks and fantastic striper fishing opportunities.
I'm no Chatham fishing expert, however I do know that Monomoy supports acres of fast moving rips, and expansive sand flats-perfect for the light tackle and fly fishing crowd. The area east of Chatham inlet is also a prime spot that routinely holds big bass. Big bluefin tuna also roam the area, and I heard that Charlie has made his presence known numerous times this week.
So after hearing the plethora of positive information flowing from Chatham, I couldn't resist trecking down there at 3AM Tuesday morning.
I would soon realize that I still had A LOT of learning left to do when it comes to striped bass fishing.
After making the long run around Monomoy from Harwichport, we immediately settled up on a nice school of busting bass. Within the first 30 minutes we had caught around 10 fish, 3 of which were keepers. It was a good start but short lived.
Soon the fleet arrived and the place turned into Disneyland. I spent the rest of the morning dodging the 200 plus boats, catching bluefish, and landing one more corky 20 pound bass. Not the best outcome, but a learning experience nonetheless.
July 20 - Cape Cod Bay
The next day I had a trip slated for Cape Cod Bay with Kevin, a recently hired New England Patriots' employee. Actually, it's been almost a year to the day that Kevin got word that he was hired by the Pats. Ironically enough he got the phone call while fishing on the Miss Loretta last summer. I was hoping the good mojo would continue!
Almost as soon as we put our tube and worm rigs in the water, Kevin was on with a monster bluefish. Not the target species, but at least there was some life in the area.
10 minutes later, the clicker starts screaming, and Kev's on! This was no bluefish, and after a lengthy battle, I sank the gaff into a beautiful 25 pound line sider-nice!
Kevin and I fell into a nice routine for the remainder of the trip. Setting lines, pitching eels and boating fish. When all was said and done, we had 16 keeper bass to our names, all between 20 and 39 pounds.
Of course the highlight of the trip was tripling up on a lobster pot. The first time I have ever successfully managed to hook all three tubes on the same pot. Go me.
I forget what Kevin's personal best is for striped bass, but this 39 pounder must of been pretty close to his biggest.
July 21- Cape Cod Bay
This morning was EXTREMELY windy! However we still managed to find the bass amidst the white caps.
Tubes were the ticket today. For some reason the bass ignored the eels-go figure. Finaly tally was 7 keeper fish between 25 and 35 pounds. I forgot to take pictures so you'll just have to take my word on it!
There seems to be a nice class of fish moving into the area right now. I have next Friday night, July 29th available for anyone who would like to get a shot at these beautiful bass.
Good luck and tight lines!
Captain Ryan Collins
