Bruno's Weekend Fishing Forecast
Proud MFCC Member Bruno Demir of Cape & Islands Mitsubishi and The Olde Cape Carwash joins us to talk about a hot stretch of offshore fishing including mahi and wahoo! Bruno also goes into great detail on Monomoy and breaks down the weekend forecast to provide the latest intel on what is biting and when the optimal bite windows should occur.
Offshore: Wahoo at the Dump
Before diving into this week, Bruno circled back to a big offshore run he made just before his vacation — a run that netted him a wahoo. Working reports of wahoo showing up at the Dump, Bruno's crew dropped a pair of Nomad deep divers rigged to run true at higher trolling speeds, then dressed up the spread with daisy chains up top to draw fish to the surface. The setup produced a 52-inch wahoo, caught running roughly nine knots southbound off the southeast corner of the Dump.
That fish wasn't a one-off. Bruno said he's now aware of six separate wahoo reports from that same southeast corner this season, including one from last Friday. His theory is straightforward: the high-flyer buoys in that stretch tend to hold smaller mahi, and the water there has stayed blue and warm, in the 70s. Wahoo, he believes, are cruising through that structure and picking off mahi and other bait gathered around the lobster gear, and he doesn't expect them to move on anytime soon. For anyone running offshore this weekend, he flagged that southeast corner of the Dump as a spot worth trolling through.
From there, Bruno's trip carried him farther south to Atlantis — notably the same day Castafari boated a 1,250-pound blue marlin that broke the Atlantic Ocean East Coast record. Bruno's crew was in on the action too, landing a couple of bigeye tuna and hooking a big blue marlin of their own, though that fight ended after a brief seven minutes when the fish shook the hook.
The real highlight, though, came on a follow-up trip that stayed closer to home in the shipping lanes south of the islands rather than running all the way to the canyons. Bruno described the mahi fishing there as some of the best he's seen in years. High-flyer buoys were stacked with big mahi, and the crew ran a rotation: hook one fish and keep it in the water as a teaser, have a second bait ready to pitch, and wait for the bigger bulls to show themselves. When a big bull surfaced, they'd pitch a bait right in front of it and sight-cast from just five to ten feet off the boat in water clear enough to watch the whole thing unfold. Local squid was the bait of choice, and freebies pitched ahead of time helped draw fish up and keep the bite going as the crew worked through the school.
Bruno also flagged an emerging opportunity as fall approaches: haddock in deeper water. Last year the fishing grounds off Chatham were holding some of the biggest haddock he'd seen since he was a kid, in around 300 feet of water. He expects haddock to already be showing at the fishing grounds or the shipping lanes east of Chatham, and he's planning to get out there for haddock and pollock as soon as the wind allows.
Nantucket Sound, the Windmills, and Vineyard-Area Options
Bruno's report also touched on the water between the Cape and the islands, where several fisheries are stacking up at once. Bonito have been thick from Kill Pond Bar off Dennis all the way up to Monomoy and down to Handkerchief Shoal, a sign that there's good bait — sand eels and smaller baitfish — sitting in that stretch right now.
For boaters with a bit more range, Bruno singled out the windmills south of Hooter as one of the better plays available this weekend. He described the structure the windmills have created over time as holding a lot of mahi, not just around the individual towers but throughout the whole array. He's also convinced there are smaller bluefin tuna in the mix and believes the area is squarely in White Marlin territory right now, making the windmills worth a stop for anyone running through that zone.
Bruno noted that false albacore have been scarce on his side of the water so far this season, with better reports coming from guys fishing closer to the Vineyard and Falmouth. For boats based closer to that side, he suggested the windmills are within easy reach and worth prioritizing over a longer run east.
Monomoy: A Textbook Tide Setup for This Weekend
Closer to shore, Bruno reported that the fluke and sea bass fishery off Monomoy remains excellent. Fishing with his mom and son this past Friday, he boated fluke up to 24 inches along with a number of oversized black sea bass. Bruno compared the current sea bass fishing off Monomoy to the historically strong runs that used to happen in during Spring in Buzzards Bay, calling it epic. Those sea bass are actively feeding on sand eels right now, fattening up ahead of the season's first big northeast storm, after which he expects them to clear out.
Striped bass have been noticeably light at Monomoy for stretches of this season, but Bruno is optimistic that could change soon. He pointed to strong striper fishing already established up in Provincetown and north toward Boston, and suggested that recent north winds could be the trigger that pushes those fish south toward Monomoy, possibly holding them there for a while during the migration.
Bruno also walked through a detailed tide plan for Monomoy this Saturday, built around a new moon and unusually strong tidal movement. According to the charts he reviewed, max flood at Point Rip and Handkerchief Shoal falls around 8:00–9:00 a.m. Saturday, with slack tide around 6:00 a.m., right at sunrise. With the flood tide running close to two knots this weekend, he expects the rips to run hard, disorienting bait and giving predators an easy meal in calm, favorable seas.
His recommended window: be on the water at Monomoy by 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. at the latest, with the bite likely running hot until around 11:00 or 11:30 a.m. before tapering off. The tide then builds back toward a max ebb around 3:00 p.m., which should set up a second strong window of fishing from roughly 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. Bruno is hopeful that if striped bass do move down with the north wind, this is the tide setup and time frame that will put anglers on them at Monomoy.
The Weekend Ahead
Bruno summed up his own priority list for anyone weighing options this weekend, based on boat size and location. In a smaller boat, he'd be parked at Monomoy for those two tide windows chasing fluke, sea bass, and hopefully striped bass. With a bigger boat, he'd run east for haddock and pollock in the deeper water off Chatham. Running from closer to the Vineyard or Falmouth, he'd point toward the windmills for mahi, small bluefin, and White Marlin.
With calm seas forecast for Friday night into Saturday and a strong tide lining up at Monomoy, Bruno's report points to a weekend with options in every direction — offshore, in the Sound, and right in close to Monomoy.
Tight Lines & Take Care!