Fletcher Fishing

posted by John on Jul 22

Having heard the rumors that P’town was slow and Chatham was hot led us to another day off Chatham. We continued where we left off. Only today was the wildest weather and whale day. The NOAA folks predicted 4-6 ft seas, but they were wrong as to where we were. We were lucky to get a 4 footer, it almost was laughable.

While going out of the new cut is easy, it is completely different in pea soup. Not having radar, I rely on my senses to hear boats coming and going. That and going slow. Plans for radar are under way. Today the visibility was 25 feet at best. It turned routine into adrenaline pumping excitement (APE) just cruising to the next APE, known as catching fish.

Who knew that the whales would add a large component of APE as well. In the fog, whales were blowing and splashing from all directions. Some sounded as if they were coming other going, but no visuals.

As per usual the fog thinned and thickened, but never left us where we were fishing. It turned out the beach was clear.

As to fishing, we caught fish. Sluggos were the order of the day, great hits. We found piles of fish in 40-60 feet. We only caught 2 shorts and here is the biggest:

Once the fog cleared somewhat, the whales that were feeding in the area came by to check us out.

All in all a good day!

posted by John on Jul 21

The word on the water was that today was going to be sloppy, three people all told me that. They were wrong or they don’t know what sloppy means. The Atlantic Ocean was really honking with a SW breeze and 2-4 foot waves;). We barely took any water over the rail.:p

Fishing was good. Not everyone caught on today. Diamond jigs, the lure we were told rocks, did not work well, the commercial guys did their wire snapping and we switched to topwater plugs, as birds and breaking fish dictated,. The Bomber mambo minnow was great, as was a big yellow popper.
We worked a pretty large area from 45-60 feet deep . We fished with the armada for a little while, then fished away from them.
However we caught 2 nice keeper stripers 30-32″ for the family, some shorts, and about 7 blues, up to 12 lbs or so. We would have stayed longer but the steering pump died and I only had enough steering fluid for the trip home.