This past week I traded my usual surf rod for something a little different — a six-foot-six ultralight spinning setup, rated for lures as light as one-sixteenth of an ounce, spooled with 15-pound braid and a 15-pound fluorocarbon leader.
No waders, no 3am alarm, no giant plugs. Just a bathing suit, a tiny rod, and a plan to fluke fish from the beach using a one-eighth ounce lead head dressed with a pink four-inch Gulp curly tail, trimmed down to three inches.
I wanted to prove something to myself, and honestly to you: Cape Cod fishing doesn’t have to mean stripers and bluefish, four-hundred-dollar rods, and predawn wakeups.
As MFCC member Todd Holden has shared before, this is essentially freshwater tackle. Anyone can do this, at any inlet or estuary on the Cape, in the middle of a sunny afternoon, standing in the water in a bathing suit. It’s simple. It’s cheap. And as I found out, it’s full of surprises.
Locations #1 and #2: Working Buzzards Bay
Monday, September 7th started at this location in Bourne, a spot that’s produced good fluke for me in years past when peanut bunker were thick around the docks. Not this time — no bait, no bites.
I worked south to these jetties with the same result, then further south still to this beach in West Falmouth, where the jetty is as beautiful as it is genuinely dangerous. If you ever fish it, watch your footing — those rocks are slick and unforgiving.
There, on a tiny two-inch dart spin, I connected with something I wasn’t expecting: lizardfish. Two of them, with several more bites I never converted.
Lizardfish are warm-water wanderers, pushed up from the south on the Gulf Stream’s summer currents, and by autumn most head back out before the Cape’s waters cool. Alien-looking, all teeth and attitude for their size, they’re a strange little gift of late summer — a reminder that our waters host more than the usual suspects if you’re paying attention.
Location #3: Working Vineyard Sound
Once out there, I switched from the dart spin to the pink curly tail jig to get down in the water column — and on my first cast, I had a bite that felt right. A few casts later, I hooked up and felt those unmistakable fluke head-shakes.
I worked him right to my feet at the jetty, got a good look — just shy of keeper size — and the hook pulled before I could get a photo. I hooked a second one shortly after, similar size, same result. Both bites came casting toward the beach side of the jetty, nothing toward the channel. So close, twice, and still no fluke in hand.
Location #4: An Inlet in Cape Cod Bay
Tuesday, September 8th — my birthday — I tried a third location entirely: this historically productive location in Cape Cod Bay. I have caught fluke from shore here before but it’s been years since I tried.
It was dead low tide, and I was wading near the inlet, when a school of fish suddenly blitzed the surface right in front of me. I cast into the chaos and came up with a beautiful Atlantic mackerel — a fish that is usually caught from a boat.
Then, working a sandy flat nearby, I started getting the same soft fluke-style bites — and landed something even cooler: a windowpane flounder, my first ever from shore!
In Conclusion
Wednesday morning I went back to the tidal pools at this spot hoping a striper might be working the bait in the shallows. Plenty of bait, no stripers — a quiet morning fishing-wise but still a very nice start to my day.
I never did land that fluke. But somewhere between the lizardfish, the mackerel, and a windowpane flounder, I stopped minding. Sometimes the biggest adventure is a tiny jig, a strange fish, and an afternoon you didn’t expect.
Tight lines! 🎣
About the author
Ryan Collins
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thanks. yes, iphone. may have to go back to a compact non-phone camera at some point since there aren’t any smaller iphones being made at the moment. I like something that fits in a shirt pocket.
Never know what the Cape will produce. I’ve caught a few Windowpane flounder over the years, neat fish.
Also have caught lizardfish, what a mouth.
hey Ryan, thanks for the mention in the surfcasting thread. here’s a cool shot of the underside of a windowpane I caught last year. you could probably read a book through the thin outer edge…
Thanks Todd. That’s a cool pic. Great quality photo. Are you shooting on an iPhone?