Big news: MFCC podcast host Kevin Collins has teamed up with longtime MFCC member Eddy Kooyomjian of Monomoy Tackle on a new podcast series. Full episodes are available over at MonomoyTackle.com, but we wanted MFCC to get the same insider intel and captain insights right here too!
Fall Run Stripers & Albies
Autumn is only a day away on the calendar, and for Cape Cod anglers that means one thing: the fall run. On episode seven of the Monomoy Saltwater Journal, recorded on September 20, Kevin and Eddy sat down with Captain Ben Sussman, the operator of In the Net Sport Fishing, for a wide-ranging conversation about striped bass, false albacore, bonito, and the weather system bearing down on the region.
Ben specializes in light tackle, inshore fishing, with a heavy focus on stripers and false albacore, and he is known around the Cape for his skill with large topwater plugs!
Captain Ben's Path to the Water
Like a lot of people in the fishing industry, Ben has been obsessed since he was very young. He remembers standing on pond shorelines as a kid for hours, casting little Rapalas for pickerel and bass, and not caring one bit what the weather was doing. As the fish got bigger, so did his ambitions. He talked his parents into trips to the Cape, Boston Harbor, and the South Shore, where he caught schoolie stripers and small bluefish, and once he was old enough he started going on his own.
Through high school and college he fished heavily, spending a lot of nights chasing stripers and learning that fishery well. From there he moved into kayak fishing, then a boat, and it kept building. He earned his captain's license three years ago and started running his own charters.
Striped Bass
Ben's season follows a familiar rhythm. From May until the middle or end of June, before the water gets hot, he fishes almost exclusively on the south side, and the rips are his favorite place to be. The fish there tend to be aggressive and are often feeding on squid, which makes for plenty of topwater action. It is also a versatile fishery: you can troll, fly fish, or cast lures at them, and Ben will happily do whatever the fish want.
That bite dried up around the end of June, which Ben described as pretty typical. What was different this year was how the rest of the summer played out. He rated Vineyard Sound as good until the end of June, with Monomoy decent until roughly mid-July. Last year, by comparison, he did well around Monomoy for the entire season. He admits he is not sure what changed. Whenever he has gone out there, there has been plenty of bait, but the fish were simply not as available.
This year's slowdown came earlier than the one he usually sees, which normally coincides with the dog days of summer and some offshore activity. Eddy's read, which lined up with Ben's, is that the summer-resident class of stripers, the fish that hang out in the rips all summer, simply kept moving north. Ben pointed out that Boston Harbor and that general area have been fishing really well.
Cape Cod Bay: A Different Fishery
Eddy brought up the theme that has run through much of this season: Cape Cod Bay has been pronounced a real hotspot by many anglers and past guests. Ben's experience fits that picture. Once the south side dries up, he shifts his attention to Cape Cod Bay, which he was quick to call a different fishery altogether. The main game there is trolling live mackerel, although he noted that there are fish on the surface as well.
The takeaway for anglers is flexibility. Ben spends the early season chasing aggressive, squid-eating fish in the rips of Voneyaerd Sound, then changes both location and technique when the fish do. Rather than staying loyal to one stretch of water, he follows the fish.
The South Side: Ben's Two Game Plans
Ben's home waters run from Vineyard Sound east along the Nantucket Sound side of the Cape. He likes to launch from Prince Cove or Hyannis because both are centrally located, which lets him go east, west, or south depending on conditions. Wind is the deciding factor. With a lot of southwest breeze, the open water to the south gets choppy, so he stays on the mainland side.
Plan One: West and South
When it is calm enough, Ben runs out of Prince Cove and works down along Popponesset. Fish can show up as soon as you leave the harbor, so he runs along the beach about a half mile off, all the way down to Woods Hole. From there he cuts across to behind Middle Ground and loops back toward State Beach. Depending on the wind, he says you will find fish somewhere in that zone.
Plan Two: East
The other option is to head east, stopping along Hyannis and continuing on. If nothing is showing, he gives the area in front of Bass River a look, then heads to Monomoy. If time allows, you could even shoot up to Nantucket.
What the Bait Looks Like Right Now
Ben reported tons and tons of bait on the south side, mostly four- to five-inch peanut bunker. The only thing really on them was snapper bluefish. The water was still in the high 60s, and while he is sure some stripers were around, he believes a drop of five or six degrees would really get things going. Eddy pointed out that four- to five-inch bait is good news for anglers, since more of the lures in a typical tackle bag match that size and profile.
False Albacore
Bonito have been around again, similar to the last two years, and albies are starting to show up in reports. Ben was on the water Thursday and found more false albacore than he had been seeing. They were a little smaller, possibly freshly arrived, and they were willing to eat. His clients caught a couple on epoxy jigs and Albie Snacks, and they tried hard to get one on a fly, which he said was not easy. In hindsight he thinks they would have caught even more had they stuck with spinning gear.
A day or two later, the fish were not nearly as cooperative. A change in wind direction may have moved them around, but Ben's takeaway is that you either find a lot of fish in one place or you have to cover a lot of water. The good news is that when you do find them, they have been hitting.
The bait tells an interesting story as well. Where Ben found his albies, they were feeding on small silvery baitfish that looked almost like juvenile herring. They were not silversides, sand eels, or peanut bunker, although he has seen all of those in the back waters. In some areas he has also seen albies on tiny anchovies, which he called probably the worst bait to target them on, because the fish get extremely finicky when they are keyed in on it.
A Massachusetts Record
The MSJ panel of Kevin, Eddy, and Ben wanted to congratulate Sherry Countryman of Martha's Vineyard, who set the Massachusetts state record for false albacore with a 19.9-pound fish, just shy of 20 pounds. Amy Wrightson of Sports Port in Hyannis said the catch reportedly rocketed Sherry and her teammates to the top of the Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.
Captain Ben said the size is crazy, and that it is the type of fish you would expect much farther offshore. He has seen albies in the 12 to 15 pound range over the past couple of years, but nothing close to that.
False Albacore: Tactics That Work
Epoxy Jigs Versus Soft Plastics
Ben runs two approaches. When it is rougher, the fish are less boat shy, and you need a long, accurate cast in the wind, he sticks with epoxy jigs. On flat calm days when albies are busting everywhere but refuse to eat, he finds soft plastics work a little better. He typically rigs two or three rods with epoxies and two or three with plastics.
His rule of thumb is simple. If you get a good cast through the school and the fish ignore your lure on the first four or five good casts, it is time to change. At that point they probably are not going to hit whatever you are throwing, so switch colors, or better yet, switch to a different type of lure.
Profile and Action Over Color
Eddy asked where Ben lands on the debate between force-feeding fish with one lure and constantly experimenting, a topic that came up with previous guest Captain Tyler Putney. Ben called himself a big believer in profile and action. He admits he is not an albie scientist and does not know exactly how well they see color, but he believes matching the profile of the bait and the way it swims is super important.
Before he would change color, Ben would change size. If they will not eat a one-and-a-half ounce epoxy, he goes down to three-quarters of an ounce and gets a little closer, because throwing the smallest lure possible is often the ticket.
Action matters too! Epoxies swim fairly straight with a little wiggle, while soft plastics dart side to side and can be fished much more slowly. Ben sees a lot of anglers burn their lure through the school so fast that the fish see it for only about three seconds. Work it slowly and it stays in the boil for eight to ten seconds, which improves your odds considerably.
Setup Tips for Finicky Fish
Getting the lure into the boil is half the battle, especially with how up and down the fish have been. Ben recommends light braid of no more than 20 pound test and light gear, such as a quarter- to one-ounce rod, the kind of setup you would use for schoolie stripers. He also likes four to five feet of 15 to 20 pound fluorocarbon leader, because albies have huge eyes and can be very picky. The goal is a setup that lets you put the lure right on the target.
Ben's Three Go-To Albie Lures
Asked for three staples from his false albacore career on Cape Cod, Captain Ben offered these suggestions:
- The Albie Snack. The five-inch size, rigged with a 3/0 or 4/0 hook, is his top choice if you can get it into the feed.
- A three-quarter ounce silver epoxy. He says any brand works, and treble or single hooks are both fine.
- A half-ounce epoxy in a bright color. When fish are being really finicky, something like cream or light pink that matches a bay anchovy, or simply something a little different, can turn them on.
If they will not hit any of those, he says maybe they will eat a fly, but more often it is time to move. Ben also made a point that finding fish on bigger bait is underrated. You may find plenty of albies, but if they ignore everything in the box, you are often better off running, burning some fuel, and locating fish feeding on something else.
Bonito and the Golden Dart
The gold-colored dart-style lure from Monomoy Tackle that Ben took with him to Florida last winter, produced some memorable photos of four-foot-plus barracuda. It is not quite an epoxy jig and not a soft plastic, and Eddy was curious how it has performed at home. Ben reports it has worked very well on the Cape. He has caught bonito, mahi, stripers, and bluefish on it, and he says the bonito love it!
Down in Florida, the lure proved itself against some of the toughest customers around. Along with the barracuda, Ben caught king mackerel and snook, and he is pretty sure he hooked and lost a few small tarpon. He called barracuda the ultimate gear test, since they are so mean and hard on tackle!
The Fall Run and the Nor'easter
With north and northeast wind in the forecast, Ben believes the migration could get a real kick. In his experience, every year, weather like this gets things going. Kevin looked at the forecast that morning and saw it intensify, with north-northeast winds of 40 plus knots inside Cape Cod Bay from about Thursday through Saturday.
Ed noted that this is the first big storm in a while, in a season that has been quiet in the Atlantic hurricane department. Normally by this point, several offshore swells have already affected the fishing.
That raises a real question about fluke, which tend to leave with the first major storm. There has been no storm yet this year, so nobody knows what a late-September nor'easter will do to the fluke fishery, or to the funny fish. Fingers cross our great fall season will not be interruped!
A Surf Opportunity
Both hosts agree this low pressure system could be a surfcasting paradise. Kevin mentioned MFCC Member Calvin Toran-Sandlin as the kind of angler who dreams about this sort of event, and Ed said the hardcore crowd is probably salivating. But the message from both was the same: safety first. Know your boundaries, avoid rocks and waves that can knock you down, and only fish from a spot and platform you can reach safely. Boat owners should also keep the weather in mind and secure their vessels before the storm arrives Thursday night.
Final Thoughts
Eddy summed up what he loves about this season's guests: everyone shares some common threads about false albacore, but each captain has a personal take on how to catch them. Ben's message is clear. Match the size and profile of the bait, slow down your retrieve, keep your gear light, and know when to move on. And with a storm coming, stay safe and watch for the fall run to fire up!
Tight Lines & Take Care!
Enter your text here...