Patrick Scholz

Old memories start to resurface as I dive into this recap of my 3 day fishing trip to Cape Cod. 

Therefore I've decided to preface this story with some of these memories-mainly because they're fishing related!

For the many readers here on MFCC who may not know, my fishing roots are in Switzerland and Canada, which are quite a different fisheries than Cape Cod.

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How It All Began

It all began when I met Nick (my longtime fishing friend) at the University of Alberta, one year after moving to Canada from Switzerland.

Nick was working on his PhD to become a fisheries scientist, while I was working towards a water resources master’s degree.

I had never drilled a hole through the ice, but I invited him for some “ice fishing." This consisted in pushing my 10ft aluminium boat on the ice, until we could reach open water.

On this particular lake, open water would exist in the middle of winter due to the nearby power plant, which used the lake water as coolant fluid.

The following year, I was a volunteer for a lake sturgeon study. I was granted a special fishing license which allowed me to fish with multiple lines in the water.

I ended up catching about half of all the sturgeons caught by the twenty or so volunteers that year. I also introduced Nick to sturgeon fishing. Later Nick would manage to catch one of the largest sturgeons in the entire river.

This all occurred about 18 years ago. Good times!

I ended up moving to Quebec and a few years later Nick and his wife returned to Ontario.

Discovering MFCC

I had heard about My Fishing Cape Cod from a fellow Canadian angler while casting top water plugs from a beach in Cuba.

A trip to Cape Cod for striped bass was now at the top of my fishing bucket list.

It did not take much convincing to get Nick onboard and to settle on some possible dates.

A quick check with Ryan of MFCC confirmed these dates should give us a good shot at catching striped bass!

Our Cape Cod Road Trip

Fast forward a couple of months and Nick is making the 3.5 hour drive to my home in Canada. It then took us another 9.5 hours of driving before we finally arrived in Sandwich.

The Sandwich Lodge is well suited for traveling anglers, and I highly recommend the nearby British Beer Company’s tuna sandwich.

Nick and I were tired from the long drive, and not sure if we should go try a few casts at the Canal, or get some rest to be in top shape for the next morning.

However, a quick phone call to Ryan Collins pointed us towards a nearby spot he thought might hold a few fish…

By 11:00 pm, we were walking in the dark along a beach we had never seen before. Having no idea if the water we were about to fish would be 2 feet or 20 feet deep, Nick put on a jig, and I went with a shallow crankbait.

After a few casts I felt a little “toc”, set the hook, and soon had a small fish jiggling at my feet: my first ever striped bass!

It was only a small schoolie, but it was clear Nick and I were on the right track.

We had to wait past midnight for the next tide change, when Nick suddently hooked his first-ever striper: a beautiful keeper size fish, caught one hour after his birthday!

Nick soon hooked up with another smaller striper before the action slowed down, and we eventually decided to call it a night.

A Helpful Stop at
Canal Bait & Tackle

The next morning we made a stop at Canal Bait and Tackle, where we found all the tackle we would ever need. After getting some valuable intel from the friendly staff, we ventured to the canal around slack tide.

We were still tired after getting only half a night of sleep, so we only fished for around two hours. I tried casting heavy jigs into deep water, while Nick was using lighter tackle closer to shore. Eventually, Nick ended-up catching a schoolie which would be the only fish we caught at the "Big Ditch."

In the evening (and after just an hour or two of sleep) we went back to where Nick had caught his first keeper the night before.

We were the only ones there, and I only needed two casts to hook-up with another schoolie. Over the course of the next hour, we tallied 6 bass!

After the tide turned we landed 4 more, with many other fish providing us with a good fight, before shaking the hook.

Eventually the sun came up, and that is when Nick managed to catch the sole bluefish of the trip.

This time we were tired enough to sleep the equivalent of a whole night, despite it being daytime.

We wanted to be ready to meet up with Ryan the following evening...

Surfcasting with Ryan Collins

It was good to finally meet Ryan in person and see the way he fishes.

Ryan showed us "how it is done" by catching half a dozen stripers, while I only caught one, and Nick got skunked.

Each of us also hooked and lost a few more fish.

We didn't stay on the beach late that night as we had to be ready at 5:00am the next morning for a My Fishing Cape Cod group fishing trip with Captain Cullen.

Success with Captain Cullen!

We arrived at the boat ramp early, eager to experience some of the best striped bass fishing Cape Cod can provide.

Cullen and the crew from MFCC soon arrived, and we began the 45 minute run to the fishing grounds where several other boats were already hooked up.

Our boat caught a couple smaller fish but action was rather slow to start. There were fish on the sonar, but they were mainly inactive, hugging tight to the bottom.

Cullen then decided to catch us some mackerel to use as live bait. 

Yet even with the live mackerel and a moving tide, we couldn't get any bites. Cullen then opted to make a move towards another group of boats.

As we arrived closer, we could see several anglers on beach boat battling fish.

This time it wasn’t long before Cullen intercepted a pack of feeding bass, and put us all on the bite!

Seeing several stripers in the 15-25 pound class fighting to gulp a swim bait is an amazing sight!

Even the smaller ones gave us a good fight on the light tackle we were using.

I ended up catching 4 bass and Nick got 2, with a few more that escaped before reaching the side of the boat.

It was tough having to leave just after finally finding the big fish, but Cullen had his next customers already waiting at the launch.

The amount of life (birds, sand eels, mackerels and striped bass) was a great sight, especially for rookie Cape Cod anglers like Nick and I.

Back at the hotel, Nick prepared a typical “Canadian shore lunch” with the small keeper we brought back.

We ate the fish within hours of them being caught.

Delicious!

One Last Trip Into The Suds

After the equivalent of a full nights' sleep, we were ready for a last attempt from shore. We could have gone to the Canal for a chance at a larger fish, but opted to fish the beach instead.

-Patrick