Two Boats, Three Bays, and One Season with Captain Chris Ballerini

Big news: MFCC podcast host Kevin Collins has teamed up with longtime MFCC member Eddy Kooyomjian of Monomoy Tackle on a new podcast series. Full episodes are available over at MonomoyTackle.com, but we wanted MFCC to get the same insider intel and captain insights right here too!Enter your text here...

Inside Captain Chris Ballerini's Cape Cod Season

On episode five of the Monomoy Saltwater Journal, hosts Kevin Collins and Eddy Kooyomjian welcome Captain Chris Ballerini of Back of the Bay Charter Company. Chris built his guiding resume the hard way, starting out at Sasquatch Fly Fishing in Estes Park, Colorado before spending four summers guiding remote fly-fishing expeditions in Alaska. He founded Back of the Bay Charter Company in 2021 running fly and light-tackle trips out of Plymouth with a focus on the the "three bays" of Plymouth, Kingston, and Duxbury.

This report is a breakdown of where Chris fishes within Cape Cod Bay, why running two boats on trailers keeps him ahead of the fish all season long, what's rigged up on his charters, and how he and Eddy see the funny fish season shaping up!

Cape Cod Bay: Where to Fish For Stripers

Chris splits his Cape Cod Bay time between two general zones: the open-water crossing from Plymouth toward Provincetown, working the stretch between Sandy Neck and P-Town, and the water he can reach without ever leaving home — deep in the bay directly in front of Plymouth and Duxbury. Both areas produced some of his best fishing of the year, with big striped bass showing up consistently around heavy concentrations of squid.

However, this season wasn't without its rough patches. Early on, Chris found himself throwing what he called "Hail Mary's" — running on marginal information before the bite had really settled into the bay. His read on that stretch is a lesson for any boater chasing reports: striped bass moving through open water can shift their position by several miles each day, and an angler who commits too early, or doesn't commit far enough, can miss a red-hot bite. Patience early, paired with willingness to make longer runs once the fish are confirmed, was the difference between a wasted morning and a spectacular trip for his customers.

A Resident Bite

One of the more notable trends this season, discussed by both Chris and Eddy, is that striped bass settling into Cape Cod Bay actually stayed put rather than dispersing as summer wore on. In a typical year, warming water or shifting bait tends to push those fish out toward the backside beaches around Monomoy as the season progresses. This year, the bay fish became residents, feeding heavily on a rotating buffet of pogies, mackerel, and squid without pushing off toward the Cape's outer shoreline.

Productive Bait in the Bay

Three bait sources drove the Cape Cod Bay bite all season, each useful in a different context:

• Mackerel — Chris leans on mackerel-based trips for families, kids, and less experienced anglers. Mackerel can often be found right in the three bays without needing to run offshore, making for an efficient, high-percentage trip.
• Squid — When clients want to throw artificial lures, the squid bite has been outstanding. Chris described losing count of the fish caught on topwater and fly gear when stripers were keyed in on squid.
• Pogies (menhaden) — Part of the buffet keeping bass resident in the bay this season, alongside mackerel and squid, particularly for the fish that set up shop rather than migrating through.

The one soft spot in an otherwise strong season: a relative lack of small fish. Chris did find some schoolies on top water inside the three bays on scattered days, but the abundance skewed toward larger, resident-sized striped bass rather than a strong showing of juveniles.

The Case for Trailering: Two Boats and One Season

Chris runs charters out of two very different boats, and the combination is central to how he fishes the entire season. His 28-foot Grady Sailfish walkaround stays on a slip in Plymouth Harbor. It's the boat for bigger groups or rough weather, but it also ties him more tightly to Cape Cod Bay and the backside — he has to be aboard it when conditions or group size demand it, and it isn't going anywhere on short notice.

His second boat, a 20-foot MayCraft Cape Classic rigged with a jack plate and trolling motor and no T-top, is built for fly fishing and light tackle with two anglers — three in a pinch — and it lives on a trailer. That flexibility lets Chris chase conditions and bait rather than being anchored to one launch point. As he put it, no matter the size of the boat, most captains wish they had one a couple feet bigger; but being able to switch between two very different platforms has more than made up for it.

Following the Season Around the Cape

The trailer allows Chris to essentially follow a seasonal migration of his own:

• May — Buzzards Bay, targeting tautog early and black sea bass toward the end of the month and into early June
• June — a shift into Cape Cod Bay as the bay's striper and bait scene ramps up
• Vineyard Sound — worked in periodically depending on conditions
• Sesuit and Barnstable — launch points he used this year specifically to avoid taking the small boat across open Cape Cod Bay in rough weather or fog
• Falmouth Harbor and points east — his primary fall base for funny fish, with additional time spent around Hyannis and Osterville this year compared to seasons past

Gear Onboard: What Chris Rigs for Clients

For funny fish and light-tackle striper work, Chris keeps his setup deliberately simple and consistent across the boat:

• Rods: TFO Tactical Inshore, 7'6", roughly 1/8 oz. to 3/4 oz. rating — long and light, similar in spirit to Chris' Aubut custom Rubber Slinger rods built for albie snacks
• Reels: Shimano Vanford 5000
• Line: roughly PE2, comparable to 15–20 lb braid
• Leader: 15 lb fluorocarbon, six feet, tied direct with no swivel
• Lures: Monomoy Tackle's white hard shell Forage Jig (his go-to epoxy after a client saved a slow afternoon with it last season) and Albie Snacks, including the newer Albie Snack XL for extra casting distance

Chris's lure selection often comes down to confidence built from the last trip or the last few fish caught. He'll typically start with an easier-to-cast profile — white, electric chicken, or pink epoxy jigs handle wind better and get into a feed more reliably — but when an angler can land an Albie Snack inside a feeding school, it tends to draw a strike more consistently than the epoxy jigs. He's not a fan of fishing snacks on jig heads, feeling it kills the bait's natural action, though he acknowledges it can still get a fish into range. 

Funny Fish: Bonito and False Albacore Tactics

With bonito already showing and false albacore reports building toward Martha's Vineyard, both Chris and Eddy previewed how they'll approach the funny fish run. Chris's fall season is largely anchored around Falmouth Harbor, with additional time spent working the shoreline east of Falmouth, around Bass River, and — more than in past years — near Hyannis and Osterville. He deliberately keeps most weekend days off the charter calendar during albie season specifically to avoid the heavy boat traffic that builds up when conditions are good.

On presentation, Chris pushes back against the instinct to always burn a lure back on the surface. While that traditional retrieve — ripping an epoxy jig or Albie Snack fast across the top — still works, he's found that tossing a snack into a feed, letting it sink briefly, and giving it a few subtle twitches can be just as effective. That approach borrows from his fly-fishing background, where success often depends on leading the fish and letting a fly hang in the strike zone rather than constantly working it. The takeaway for spin anglers: funny fish don't always require as much retrieve speed or action as most people assume.

From the Monomoy Tackle side, Eddy broke down the tackle box for the bonito and albie run. Hard-shell forage-shaped jigs — a straighter-swimming, tighter-wiggling profile compared to the wobbling peanut shape — are a strong all-around choice, with the three-quarter-ounce size casting well and matching much of the bait in the water. 

The peanut-shaped hard shells remain a proven seller for a reason, and this year's addition of three-inch micro-poppers in the same colorways as the peanut line adds a topwater option to the lineup. On the soft plastic side, Monomoy's six-inch soft plastic can be fished weedless on a weighted hook or a jig head. For anglers trolling at speed, two hard-bodied options round out the arsenal: the lipless Dart and the lipped Talon, both of which have proven especially effective — the Dart in particular remains an underrated producer on false albacore despite its larger profile.

On tactics for finding fish, Chris's take is that there's no single right answer between staying put on a known pattern versus running and gunning to chase surface activity. Early in the season he leans more on his network and covers more ground; as the fall settles in and a pattern becomes clear in a smaller area, he tends to stay put and let the fish come back through. Despite your personal approach, one thing remains clear, you have to put in your time to catch fish this season. 

Tight Lines & Take Care!🎣