*This post originally appeared on My Fishing Cape Cod on May 26th 2021.
Striped bass and black sea bass fishing is dominating the discussion inside our members' forum right now, however lets be sure to not forget about the porgies!
The month of June is probably the most popular month for porgy fishing on Cape Cod. Porgies are bottom-dwelling carnivores which feed on a variety of different crustaceans, minnows, squid and other species.
Porgy (which are also called scup) can be caught throughout Buzzard's Bay, Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound. They are a pretty rare catching in the Cape Cod Canal and inside Cape Cod Bay, and I've never heard of anyone catching porgies off the Outer Cape.
The world record porgy is 4.5 pounds and was caught in Nantucket Sound in 1992. A keeper-size porgy in Massachusetts is 9 inches, however I prefer to throw back anything under 12 inches. In fact, a 15+ inch porgy will make for wonderful table fare.
Porgies are a blast to catch using light freshwater gear. Porgy fishing Cape Cod can be productive from both boat and shore, with many docks and jetties in Buzzard's Bay, Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound producing great catches of porgies from mid-May through September.
Porgies are relatively easy to catch by using a small strip of squid on a small hook with a small weight. However porgies can also be caught using small artificial lures. When you find a school of porgies then be ready for fast action with lots of bites. For this reason porgy fishing on Cape Cod is a great option for kids and anglers without much patience.
Porgy Fishing Cape Cod on May 16th, 2021
Earlier in the month on May 16th I was fishing along the western shore in Buzzard's Bay in 15-20 feet in the area shown in the map below.
We were targeting tautog, but we ended up catching some of the largest porgies I have ever seen.
During that same general time period, MFCC member Bruno Demir was also catching huge porgies off the southside of the Cape, in the waters off Yarmouth and Barnstable, also while targeting tautog.
Catching these big porgies on relatively stout rods and reels was fun, but it got me thinking about how much more fun it would be to catch these huge porgies with ultra-light tackle. So last week on May 20th I rigged up my trout rod for porgy fishing and decided to give it a try.
Father/Son Porgy Fishing
On May 20th I took MFCC member Tom Howie and his son Tom out for an afternoon of bottom fishing on my boat the Miss Loretta. I had fished with these guys a couple times in the past, so it was good to get out fishing with them again.
Buzzard's Bay can get really nasty when the southwest wind is blowing, especially if the current is running directly into the wind. Fortunately conditions were calm and sunny as we made our way to the porgy grounds.
My plan for the trip was to first target porgies with trout rods and then go for black sea bass. For porgy fishing, we anchored up in about 20 feet of water in the area off Wing's Neck.
It was about 1.5hrs after low tide. One look at the sonar showed that there were plenty of porgies around.
For bait we used freshly frozen squid which I had caught on May 6th off Hyannis. A simple hi-lo rig with 1 ounce of weight is all we needed. The porgies were biting as soon as the rig hit bottom. It was a blast!
The size of the porgies were not as impressive as the trip prior, but most of them were above the 9 inch minimum size. They put up a tremendous fight on the freshwater setups and took plenty of line as they fought for their freedom.
Fortunately for the porgies, we were only catching them for sport, so all the porgies were released. After catching our fill we decided to head towards deeper water in search of keeper-size black sea bass.
Black Sea Bass on Buzzard's Bay
At around 11AM I gave captain Cullen of Cape Star Charters a call to see how he was doing. Cullen had a group of members from My Fishing Cape Cod fishing with him, and they were fast into big sea bass.
In no time at all everyone onboard Cullen's boat had caught their limit of sea bass, including Gretchen Stiers (pictured below) who's been a member of My Fishing Cape Cod since 2018.
As you can see from the picture of Gretchen, she was using a pink metal jig that was probably in the 1oz-2oz range.
However, for his trip we chose to use 3oz-4oz Joe Baggs Flukes in conjuction with the bottom fishing rigs made by MFCC member Eddy Kooyomjian.
We began our drift in about 37 feet of water over big boulders and terrific bottom structure, in the area shown in the map below.
The wind was now blowing about 15mph from the SE so our drift was pretty fast.
Before we knew it we had drifted on top of an underwater ledge that rose to about 25 feet. I looked at the sonar and could see big schools of sea bass holding just above the bottom.
The action was great and the sea bass were not fussy. I am sure there are times when the sea bass do not bite well, but in my experience sea bass have almost always been very aggressive.
We even caught several double headers on the bottom fishing rigs, as well as some big "knothead" male black sea bass. Fighting multiple sea bass at the same time made the experience even more exciting.
These fish were lit up in bright blue colors and were gorgeous to look at. Black sea bass are without a doubt some of the prettiest inshore fish you'll come across off Cape Cod & the Islands.
We probably made about a dozen drifts until we decided to call it a trip. The guys were in it more for sport than for meat, so we only kept a half dozen sea bass and let all the other fish swim free.
In Conclusion
Right now most of the big black sea bass action that I'm hearing about in Buzzard's Bay is coming from deeper water a bit further from shore. However in years past I've found big black sea bass closer to shore in during the end of May and beginning of June, so hopefully that will start to happen again soon.
I've heard some reports of big black sea bass being caught in the deeper water of Vineyard Sound too. I know last year black sea bass would occasionally feed in the shallower rips and shoals of Vineyard Sound, so hopefully that will happen again soon too.
Collier's Ledge and the usual spots in Nantucket Sound are producing sea bass according to reports inside our forum. Some other places worth trying in Nantucket Sound include the Yarmouth Tire Reef and the Harwich School Reef.
Tight lines! 
Would like to take this trip.
Recently moved from North Shore first time targeting black sea bass, yesterday in Buzzards Bay, did well, beautiful fish great color a few large males with bump on heads also very large scup. I used frozen scallop guts as bait. The bait has worked well for haddock and cod and in my experiencing can be substituted for clams. Of course being a scuba diver and having diving friends helps in acquiring the bait. Immensely enjoying my move to the South Shore.
Congrats on your recent move James! Sounds very exciting. And thanks for commenting about the frozen scallop guts tip. That’s very interesting and just goes to show how opportunistic scup, haddock and sea bass can be. Good luck out there this weekend if you head out!