Everyone’s waiting for the big striper migration. The texts, the forum posts, the “are they here yet?” questions are already flooding in. And the honest answer is: the main push of fresh migratory striped bass has not yet arrived on Cape Cod.
But there are bass here right now. Perhaps you’ve seen the photos in the Surfcasters Thread shared by Calvin, Jeff, Anthony and others. Holdover stripers that spent the winter on Cape. And as water temps begin to climb in late April, these fish get hungry and get active.
These are the bass I was hunting on Monday morning.
Bleeding Legs, A Dozen Ticks, and Zero Regrets
Reaching the water required bushwhacking through a stretch of dense briars and brush that I can only describe as nature’s barbed wire. By the time I broke through to the shoreline my thighs were bleeding and I was picking ticks off my pants by the handful.
I’m 40 years old. In moments like that, I feel 15!
There’s something about suffering a little for the fish that makes the whole thing more meaningful. I won’t be going back through those briars again in 2026 — once a year is plenty — but standing on that shoreline in the early morning quiet, completely alone, made every scratch worth it.
An Osprey, a Herring, and a Feeling I Can’t Quite Explain
I hadn’t made a single cast yet when an osprey appeared overhead, a beautiful, wriggling herring locked in its talons.
I stopped and just watched.
That bird had traveled thousands of miles to be here — same as the herring it was carrying, same as the bass I was chasing. Everything converging in this one quiet backwater at first light. I’d seen it before, plenty of times. But you never get tired of it. The herring wiggling in those talons, the osprey’s familiar chirp echoing across the water — it’s one of those moments that reminds you exactly why you dragged yourself out of bed at 3am.
Writing this now, I find myself thinking of Carl Johansen — our eldest MFCC member, who fished Cape Cod for over 75 years and passed away just recently at 91. Carl had a way of tying fishing back to nature, to wonder, to something larger than the fish itself. I think he would have loved that osprey moment. We said goodbye to Carl here, if you’d like to read more about the kind of angler — and the kind of person — he was.
More ospreys appeared throughout the morning. Every one of them carrying herring. Big baitfish were in the area. I felt like I was in the right place.
The Swirl, The Wait, and the Moment It All Came Together
Thirty minutes in — nothing. An hour after that — still nothing.
Then a swirl. A big, lazy push of water right behind my fly. The fish didn’t bite, but my heart did something it hadn’t done all morning. There are bass here.
I kept exploring, kept casting, kept covering water. Another hour passed. Finally, with time running low, I made a decision that I think separates obsessed anglers from everyone else: I went back to where I’d had that swirl, and I gave it 15 more minutes.
Ten minutes later, a flash of silver. A striper lunged from the depths and engulfed the fly.
The fish fought hard. Healthy, thick, no sea lice — almost certainly a holdover that had wintered right here on Cape Cod rather than a fresh arrival from the south. After a short revival she kicked free and disappeared into the water. Who knows what she’ll encounter next. Where she’ll go. What she’ll do. There’s something quietly profound about that.
A Dead Flounder and a Lesson From Last Week
On the walk out I picked up some trash — always worth doing…
While picking up trash I stumbled across something unexpected: a young winter flounder, dead and half-eaten on the shore.
It caught my eye immediately.
Just last week, a group of MFCC members joined us for a two-hour live Zoominar with Captain Mike Fowler, one of Cape Cod’s foremost flounder fishing experts. Mike talked at length about how juvenile winter flounder spend the cold months tucked into backwater bays and estuaries — exactly the kind of habitat I was fishing. And here, right at my feet, was a perfect, real-world illustration of everything he’d taught us.
The body was perfectly intact. But the head was gone — cleanly, it seemed. Something had taken just the head and left the rest untouched.
I have my theories. But I’d love to hear yours — drop a comment below. What do you think got it?
Where the Holdover Bass Are Feeding Right Now
The Season Is About To Kick Off
Monday morning reminded me why I do this. Not just the fish — though that striper was a beauty — but all of it. The 3:15am alarm. The bleeding legs. The osprey at first light. The hour of nothing followed by one perfect moment.
These are the mornings I’ll remember. And the ones I’m most grateful for. This is Cape Cod fishing. And we’re just getting warmed up!
The migratory fish are on their way. Water temps are climbing. The next few weeks on Cape Cod are going to be very, very exciting. I’ll be out there as much as I can, sharing as much as I can — the areas, the lures, the flies, the tides — with the people who matter most to me: you guys!
So I want to hear from you. Where are you at with your season? Have you found any fish yet? Are you seeing signs of life in your local waters? I know a lot of you have already shared your own reports and updates in other threads, which is fantastic. But feel free to also drop a comment below — your observations help all of us, and that’s exactly what this forum is about.
Tight lines!
Ryan
About the author
Ryan,
You’ve got me and I’m sure others stoked to get out. Me to try more on the fly. That simple tight connection to the fish on the strip will always keep me coming back. Seems like things are kicking off a little earlier this year. Lit up off craigville tonite with the squid fleet.
Tight Lines!
The full moon tonight combined with the longer photoperiod are the signals that I wait for to kick off my fishing season rather than calendar dates.
Ryan,
Areas that provide food and shelter for holdover Striped Bass are attractive to other animals as well. The salinity of backwater areas can often be less than the open ocean which means that residents may not just be marine life. I’ll bet that a large snapping turtle was what took a bite out of your flounder.