Ryan Collins
This October there has been a plethora of Ocean Sunfish (also called Mola molas) inside the Cape Cod Canal and Cape Cod Bay.
Today while filming an episode of My Fishing Cape Cod TV, myself, camera crew, Tony Nevarro and Jeff Miller of Canal Bait & Tackle encountered several of these odd fish.
Mola molas are odd-looking, interesting fish which can grow to a whopping 2,000 pounds! Ocean sunfish are also capable of breaching, and often jump straight clear of the water in an attempt to rid themselves of embedded parasites.
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Ocean sunfish were not all that we encountered today while filming. We fished outside the East End of the Canal and even took a spin through the Canal in my boat, checking out the rips and holes of the Big Ditch using my sonar.
To get the full scoop on everything we encountered, please read this forum post which I just published a few minutes ago. Leave a comment in our forum and I will be sure to reply with any advice or tips.
Tight lines!
Hi Ryan: We have a community sighting network for basking sharks and ocean sunfish at http://www.nebshark.org. We would love for you to report your sightings of these two fish to our network. That would allow us to better understand when these fish are in our area and what they are doing. NECWA (New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance) is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization based in Middleboro, MA. Check us out and thank you for any help you can provide us. We currently are in the stranding season for ocean sunfish so please contact us if you find any carcasses floating or on the beach. This is the only time we open up these fish and collect measurements, tissues, photographs, for researchers in MA and around the world. Also, if you have any video or photos you would like to share, we can always use good material in our many community presentations. Thanks, Krill
Hey Carol!
I will happily report my latest sightings. There have been quite a few, and these past few days I’ve seen some dead ones on the beach in Truro and Wellfleet.
We also had a member here on the website who counted more than a dozen between Barnstable Harbor and the Cape Cod Canal last week.
Please feel free to use this video in your presentations 🙂