My Experience Surfcasting the Full Moon of May

Low tide was at 5:50pm and high tide was not until 11:39pm. We started actively fishing around 7:50pm, so about two hours after low. The tide was really starting to come in and there was a current sweeping down the beach from west to east.

Ten minutes into fishing, at around 8pm, I caught glimpse of a dark mass moving east in about five feet of water roughly fifty feet off the beach. My heart started beating quicker once I realized this was a school of at least a couple dozen striped bass. They appeared to be good size fish too.

Finicky Fish Before Dark

In the dimming light I directed the guys towards the school and they made casts using small pencil poppers, spooks and swimming plugs. Several fish swirled and chased the lures but they were finicky and difficult to fool.

This scenario continued for the next fifteen minutes with several similar schools of fish moving down the beach but not biting well.

By 8:30pm the moon was already high in the sky, and with little cloud cover, it was illuminating the entire beach.

I started to wonder if the brightness of the moon was going to make getting bites challenging, but just as I was starting to feel nervous, Ken got a big hit on his white Tsunami Talking Popper.

Mike was the next to get bit on what I think might have been a white Yo-Zuri 3D-RX Pencil. Fortunately this fish stayed on the hook, and Mike was able to land a healthy bass of around 26 inches-his first striper of 2024!

Nighttime Action with Swimming Plugs

Once it got dark the action improved dramatically. For the most part we all switched over to swimming plugs such as yellow/white Bombers and SP Minnows in various colors. A slow to medium speed retrieve was working well for everyone.

Special congrats to Joe McNealy who caught his first Cape Cod striper during this trip!

The biggest surprise came at 9:30pm while I was on the phone with my wife Lauren saying goodnight. I had the phone pressed up against my ear with my right shoulder as I was slowly retrieving my old reliable yellow/white Bomber.

Not far offshore, perhaps just 50 feet, I got a huge bite. This fish felt heavy and much more powerful than anything we had hooked thus far. The bass took a bunch of line as I did my best to fight the fish and keep my conversation with Lauren going. I'm not sure exactly how long the fight was but I'd guess I had the fish in the wash after 4 minutes. It was a beauty!

Slower Action During the Outgoing

The action was pretty consistent with everyone getting bites every so often, but things started to cool off around 11pm. The tide was nearly high and the current had really slacked off. 

We caught a few more fish during the first part of the outgoing, but it was obvious that the best action was behind us. During this trip, the stretch of beach we fished almost always fishes better during the incoming.

Perhaps the reason this happens, is because there's much more current flow from west to east along the beach during the incoming, and far less during the outgoing. 

May 22nd | The Day Before the Full Moon

The next evening I had another awesome crew of members from My Fishing Cape Cod. This group included Mark Dalfonso and Bob Gorog.

As you can see from the photo above, conditions were gorgeous!

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and the chirping of terns and plovers as we walked to the same spot as the night before.

It was basically a repeat of the night before, with the same stage of the tide, the same lures, and same type of retrieve working.

However in general the action was not quite as hot, and we didn't catch anything close to the 40 incher I caught the night before.

Just like the night before the bite was best during the middle of the incoming tide. Things slowed down at high tide and got much slower during the outgoing. 

As you can see from the photo below, after filleting one of the slot size stripers we caught during this trip, I discovered the fish had been feeding on small crabs and clams. 

The bass also had a small rock in his stomach.

May 24 | The Day After the Full Moon

For this trip I was expecting it to be a pretty late night. High tide was not until midnight, so we arrived at the spot a bit later than before, around 9:15pm.

Al Silvia, who joined My Fishing Cape Cod as a member back in February of 2023, was the first to hook up at 10:00pm using an SP Minnow. The fish struck very close to shore, probably about 50 feet out.

This was Al's first ever striped bass, and it was a nice one!

The bass was over the slot so we sent him back into the water to fight another day. Not more than 10 minutes went by after releasing that fish, and Al was on yet again!

Nobody else had gotten any bites. Whatever Al was doing differently was working well.

Al went on to catch a few more bass that were over slot, while the rest of us scratched our heads wondering why we weren't getting any action. Perhaps there was a school of bass hanging out directly in front of Al, scrounging the bottom for crabs and clams. Or maybe Al is just a better fisherman than the rest of us. Probably the latter!

Eventually I managed to catch a fish, and then the rest of our crew, Jackson Murphy and Jonathan Bram, also hooked up with their first stripers of 2024.

The action during this trip really died out around 11pm, much earlier in the tide than the previous two trips. It was real slow going for the next couple of hours, with only a few schoolies landed. 

Nevertheless it was another excellent night under the brightness of a nearly full moon.

In Conclusion

The best action without a doubt happened two days before the full moon on the evening of May 22. The bite cooled off a little the next trip, and then really cooled off on the third trip, as the best tide got later and later in the night.

I can only wonder how the action would have been on May 21 or May 20! Perhaps we would have encountered a couple more 40 inch bass, or maybe we would not have.

Either way it was a terrific week of surfcasting with 8 members of MFCC. I had a great time fishing with you guys and hopefully we can do it again at some point in the future.

Tight lines!