The wind blew hard out of the north for the greater part of yesterday. Yet once early afternoon rolled around the breeze died down, and the seas flattened right out.
It looked like it was going to be a beauty of a evening. Mazzola gave me a ring and asked if I wanted to splash his boat and try for a keeper just before sunset. I was game and so was our fishing buddy and MFCC member O.D. Mike. By 5:30PM Mike, Mazzola and myself were on the water and looking for signs of life.
Finding live mackerel to use as bait for stripers was a cinch yesterday evening. While Mazzola hooked up the live well I cruised around for about 10 minutes before we marked a good blob of macks on the sonar.
As Mike and I dropped our sabiki rigs down to around 20 feet the sonar screen lit up, and an enormous school of mackerel appeared directly beneath our boat. It's great when the fish cooperate!
Within moments both Mike and myself were pulling up full stringers of mackerel. We would get tinkers on one drop and huge mackerel on the next. There were a ton around, at least in the area we were fishing yesterday evening
Hayabusa Sabiki Rigs of at least 15 pound test
The full stringers kept on coming as quickly as we could drop the rigs back into the water. I am not sure how mackerel schools function, but I wouldn't be surprised if all the commotion only attracted more mackerel to the area directly beneath our boat. It is easy to imagine that when mackerel are attacking what they think is prey, other mackerel take notice and swim over to check it out.
Either way the school of mackerel only grew thicker as we continued to drop our sabikis over the gunnel.
Needless to say it did not take long to put 3 dozen macks in the tank. Within no time we were stocked to capacity on live bait, ready to head off and find some bass to feed.
We reeled our lines into our sabiki rods, stowed the equipment and cruised off to where I thought we would have a decent chance of finding some stripers.
The last time I was on the water was this past Monday, which is an eternity in the fishing world. Life in the marine ecosystem changes by the hour, and striped bass in particular are notorious for showing up in one area and then disappearing into the abyss.
I have to give some credit to the good people here on the blog, who did a real nice job of keeping everyone informed of how this past week's fishing has been by posting reports in the MFCC forum.
Special congrats to MFCC member Brian D., who caught his first ever keeper striped bass this past week. I met Brian about a month ago at a Cape Cod Salties meeting. He is a real nice guy and a determined fisherman, so I was happy to read his post about his first keeper.
Nice work Brian!
Cape Cod Striped Bass Fishing Report May 17
Once we arrived at our fishing location we wasted no time getting fresh live mackerel into the water. With the sun dipping low in the sky we were going to have to find fish quickly if we wanted to make it back to the dock before complete darkness. There were a few birds working here and there and a couple stay marks on the sonar. I felt somewhat confident that we would find at least a few decent bass.
Around 7PM something began happening to Mike's mackerel. As we gazed off the port side of the boat we watched his mackerel swim right up to the surface, which we thought odd considering the mack had been spending his time right along the bottom. Something below this mack was spooking him.
Just moments later a good size bass in the mid 30 inch range came hurdling out of nowhere towards the mackerel. The fish turned on his side, flashing his belly at Mike and Jay. I whipped around just in time to hear "Oh man!" from the guys and see the remnants of the splash the bass made as he tried to suck down the bait.
Somehow the bass missed the mackerel, so Mike let the bait swim around in eager anticipation of the fish giving it another go. But the bass had disappeared as they so often do, leaving us with nothing but another fish tale to share with you right now.
The good news was that there were bass in the area, and some good sized ones at that. We soon drifted out of the zone where we had marked a few bass, so we motored right on back to do it all over again.
This time I picked a nice large and healthy mackerel from the tank. No matter how big the mackerel are, they are the perfect size for live lining. Small tinker macks and the huge "goliath" size mackerel seem to work equally well. I lobbed this big guy off the bow and watched him take off towards the west, buzzing along the surface.
The sun was sinking low in the sky, so it was now or never if I wanted to put a decent fish in the boat.
I could feel the pulsating beats of the mack's tail on the braided line. I felt every little kick as I lightly held the braided line with my finger, waiting for a strike from a bass.
Halfway through the drift the mack began going nuts. It was obvious to me that a good size bass was chasing him down. The mack was pumping hard, much harder than he had been earlier in the drift. I sat there eagerly waiting for the striper to make his move and engulf the bait.
Seconds later the line was ripped from my finger. The bass had made his move and engulfed the huge mackerel. I let a couple seconds worth of braid shoot off the reel as the bass swallowed the big bait. I stared at the line as it shot off the reel, trying to decide when would be the best time to flip the bail and tighten up on the fish.
Finally I flipped the bail, reeled up tight and set the hook. The bass must have noticed because he shot off, putting a good bend in my spinning setup.
The fish began to peel line from the reel as he dug for the bottom. I could feel him shaking his head back and forth, doing everything in his power to spit the hook....
Click here for the full report and for more information on the areas fished and techniques used....
