Cape Cod Fishing Reports with Seaduced Charters
- 2008
The 2008 charter fishing season started off slow
with almost no squid in Nantucket Sound.
Schoolie stripers started arriving and feeding
in the rivers at the end of April and were in
full swing by the middle of May despite the cold
weather. By Memorial Day the bigger striped bass
and bluefish had moved in and their numbers grew
steadily. My spring spots in Nantucket Sound
were slower than usual because of the cold
weather, but we did catch fish up to 25 lbs.,
mostly on surface lures. Days with 20 plus fish
were not common but we did have a few.
Cape Cod Bay proved to be more productive during
the middle of June with most of the fish falling
to RonZ lures on leadhead jigs. The end of June
brought the stripers to Handkerchief Shoal off
the end of Monomoy Island. We had our usually
great fishing till the middle of July. During
this time we landed many stripers over 20 lbs.
with our biggest being 33lbs. This is some of
the best fishing of my year and most of the fish
fall to surface plugs. If your goal is to catch
stripers on fly fishing gear, this time of year
will be your best opportunity.
After the middle of July the fishing slowed down
till the bigger tides of the third week when
squid moved back into the rips for a few days.
Bluefish started to show in greater numbers
around this time and provided some fast action
at times and proving elusive at others. The
fishing during August was spotty at best with
good action one day and a complete absence of
fish the next. I had a few good days but over
all it was not as good as usual.
September brought falling water temps and some
better action on the water. Cape Cod Bay began
to pick up and I got on a really good bite on
Scorton Ledge. My usual casting with light
spinning gear was replaced with trolling with
tube and worm rigs on 18 lb. test lead core on
medium casting rods. Leaving from Barnstable
Harbor or Sesuit Harbor we often ran into large
schools of feeding bluefish up to 14 lbs. with a
few stripers mixed in. These were great sport on
12 and 15lb. test and mostly caught on avis jigs
dropped to the bottom and retrieved upward. The
middle to the end of September also saw some
spotty action at the end of Monomoy for the
always elusive false albacore. There were days
of fast action followed by days of frustration,
a solid pattern never did establish itself for
these speedsters.
In
October action slowed and we had lots of wind.
But I kept wishing I could go out one more time.
I made my last trip on October 24 and was the
only trip of the year that we got skunked. I saw
no bait or fish but have heard of lots of big
stripers way offshore out of reach. A video has
been playing showing approximately 3 miles of
dead stripers thrown overboard as bycatch by a
dragger. This makes me sick and in talking to a
fisheries manager was told there is little if
anything they can do!! I couldn’t believe what I
was told!! These fish should be counted towards
the commercial quota or the offending boats
fined for fishing over stripers. These were
commercial draggers fishing for herring and I
feel they know the stripers are there and do
this every year. This year they were caught on
video by tuna fisherman on their way in. I
certainly hope this can be stopped as I sure it
impacts our inshore fishing next year by
removing so many large fish. See the video on
the
Stripers Forever site.
The fishing season is over for another year and
it’s time to think of other things….such as
hunting. It’s off to Maine for two weeks the 4th
of November and then some deer hunting on the
Cape till the end of the year. Maybe we’ll get
some ice this year or I’ll have to wet a line in
the fresh for trout and salmon till the stripers
and blues show up again next spring. Look for me
at the Cabela’s in Hamburg Pa. for their
captain’s weekend in March and the great Rhode
Island Saltwater Anglers Association show the
first of April in Providence.
