The Forum has the Where-To and How-To Info — Let’s Go Fishing!

Whether you're chasing largemouth bass or stripers, fluke or bluefin tuna, fishing from the shore, in a boat (or kayak), with a spinning, conventional, or fly setup, the forum has the latest information for you.

Monomoy Fishing: A Top Cape Cod Destination

We start with the Monomoy Fishing 2025 thread that is full of solid reports from one of the Cape's top fishing spots.

Nothing is better than heading out with a friend and both being on top of fish. That's exactly what Johan Frenje and his buddy Colin did at Monomoy, swinging flies and landing about 40 bass combined. Colin even ranked his trip to Monomoy higher than a tarpon fishing trip he took earlier this year to Florida.

Johan reports that bass were feeding on squid and sand eels and weren't picky about what they threw at them.

If you are heading to Monomoy, be sure to check out Eddy Kooyomjian's detailed posts that can help you dial in the fish. Eddy spends a lot of time on the water with his family and friends and consistently shares detailed information to make your trips more successful.

Chris G had another solid trip with his son to Monomoy and posted a video of a great white shark tearing apart a striper.

Great White Shark Activity

Another great white shark video was posted by Logan Bird in the Cape Cod Bay 2025 thread. Be careful out there — while some of the great white hysteria may have quieted down, it doesn't mean there are any fewer sharks out there.

Cape Cod Bay and Provincetown Action

Robby Griffin posted a great picture of an above-slot striper he caught in the bay, while earlier reports showed a lot of stripers and some blues around Provincetown.

Thomas Andrade reports that Race Point was loaded recently with large bass. Trolling in deeper water, 50-60 feet, proved successful. Lots of slot fish and larger, not many shorts. Check out the Cape Cod Bay section of our forum for more info.

Fly Fishing the Flats

The Fly Fishing and Fly Tying 2025 thread has some great information about striper fishing on the Brewster flats, including a nice photo of Ken Holt keeping a 26" bass in the water while taking a picture from his kayak. 

This time of year, the flats from Brewster all the way up to Eastham can offer some great sight fishing for stripers.

Safety Tips for Flats Fishing

For those new to the flats, be cautious when venturing far into the bay. Fog can quickly roll in, and being a mile out from your original starting point can be disorienting. While most days on the bay are warm and calm, 11-plus-foot tides are not uncommon.

Jeff Richard wrote a detailed post in last year's Timing the Flats thread that captures the uniqueness of the flats and offers safety advice for those fishing the flats for the first time, including:

1. Plan your trip so you are fishing the low end of the tide — two hours before and after.
2. Leave the outermost bars no later than 1.5 hours into the rise, which means a watch is required.
3. You should have a compass for safety purposes as fog can roll in quickly.

Be sure to check out Jeff's complete post, particularly if you're considering doing some nighttime fishing on the flats.

Jeff's post is a great example of the treasure trove of information on MFCC. The forum is a great place to start if you're fishing in a new location like the flats or for a species you haven't targeted before. Not only are the newest 2025 posts helpful, but checking past years can help you spot trends or new techniques to try.

Surf Fishing Success Stories

Over in the MFCC Surfcasters' thread - Summer 2025 — Calvin Toran-Sandlin is doing his usual amazing job of finding trophy-sized stripers in some of their usual haunts. Working the night shift on the water, Calvin certainly puts in the time and has the results to show for it.

Jeffrey Cotto ran into a way-above-slot striper in the surf, using the dark Fish Snax XL. Jeff lost another even larger bass on a memorable evening.

Proper Fish Handling and Conservation

Gut hooking a striper often leads to mortality, something we all want to avoid. Be sure to check out the video that Dean Gamble posted showing how to successfully remove a gut hook from a fish.

While there are some forum reports of surf anglers managing to find fish, a common theme is that it's more difficult to consistently find stripers that have spread to the canal, throughout the bay and also to the backside beaches. Reporting your efforts in the forum, both good and not so good, as well as frequently checking the forum can help increase the odds of all of us finding fish.

Hopefully, the full moon tides will get the fish moving, chasing bait. Scup, mackerel, and sand eels are in our waters in big numbers.

Striped Bass Conservation Efforts

Be sure to check out The Sustainable Fishing Notebook: Striped Bass thread for more detailed information that fellow anglers are sharing. Many posts include frustration over the poor spawn years of late, which seem to be leading to a significantly low number of below-slot fish in our waters.

MFCC member Dex Chadsey is taking it a step further and has crafted a sample letter that can be sent to your legislator. Because of the reduction of stripers, the letter requests stripers be granted "gamefish status," which would mean a recreational fishery only with no commercial sales of any kind.

The thread includes other informative posts, including one from Ben from the Mass DMF Recreational Fisheries Program with more information about striper post-release mortality.

How You Can Help

In addition to becoming advocates for reviewing striped bass regulations and educating ourselves about how we can get involved to make a difference, we can all do our part. A few ways each of us can help:

• Minimize the time we spend fighting stripers
• Reduce the number of treble hooks on lures, or replace them with single hooks
• Keep fish in the water (not on the sand or on grass) and make sure they are revived before releasing them
• And if you want that picture, make it quick and hold the fish horizontally

Offshore Fishing: Bluefin Tuna Season

In the 2025 Bluefin Tuna Season thread, MFCC members are reporting large quantities of bait, most often mackerel, but only a few yellowfin tuna and a bigeye caught thus far. Tuna anglers are anxiously awaiting reports of solid numbers of bluefin in our waters which hopefully will happen any day.

Freshwater Fishing Update

While most anglers have made the switch from fresh to salt water, a few in the Freshwater Bass 2025 thread are reporting solid success with largemouth bass cooperating, including Tim King who caught a lunker that appears to be eating very well.

Make Time for Fishing

With more than half of 2025 in the rearview mirror, have you made as much time to enjoy fishing as you would like? If so, great! If not, now is a good time to make plans for carving time from your schedule to enjoy time on the water in this year's second half. The lawn and other household projects will always be there.

Tight lines! 🎣

Dan Nahorney