Fletcher Fishing

The Cape Cod Bay is alive with different fish. We caught striped bass and bluefish.Thursday the 13th was foggy. If the bay had not been flat, we might not have ventured out. The wind and rain died down around 3:00 pm, so we splashed and went to the first lighthouse. The fog horn gave us the direction of the shore. Blues and striped bass were all over. Blues in the first 25 feet, with bass from 40-60. Sunset ended the trip.

On Friday the 14th, our plan was to go to the third lighthouse, but the lack of signs of life stopped the forward progress. After doing a 180 we stopped at every Gannet Diving Derby. Some produced blues, some did not produce anything. At a location called Damian’s Pride or way point 35, we found a pile of bass. They did only trigger on the color green, 6″ sluggos – Arkansas shiner, and a Kalin bullet head jig with a dark green ronzi 7″ tail.

Here are the pics.

Light tackle really makes a 20 lb fish feel like a whale.

Back in 1904, I used to catch similar fish. 😉

This was the big fish of the day, 35″ @20lbs

Here are the two we kept. We also took a 4 lb blue for the smoker.

Today was great. I was just going to do a splash test for the boat to make sure she holds together under load after I put all the new parts on. Pulleys, steering pump, steering fluid cooler.

I am really happy I had my rods on the boat. I was really unhappy that they sat for six weeks. I fouled 2 with real skill, no hope for them untangling. One rod broke a guide from the force of a cast and the leader knot catching. So I was three rods down. I lost my Sebile swimmer, and three jig heads.

Now the good news. There are fish in the bay. The only way I took bass today under the birds was Sluggos on bullet lead heads. I used 3/4 oz, with 7 1/2 inch tail. The fish were on top (blues) and about 6-20 feet down (bass). I caught about 12 bass by allowing the jigs to sink below the fish then retrieve back up through them. As long as I stayed with the fish, I got a bass every cast. I saw a lot of people catching bluefish.

The nice guy in the yellow boat with a diesel engine came by to see why I was catching bass. After I lost my last jig head, again bad leader, all curly and funky from sitting 6 weeks, I used plugs and my Sebile to mess around with bluefish. I caught about 8 blues, from 4-12 lbs. I stayed out until I lost the Sebile to a blue, then headed in.

We are going to do a spicy Thai crispy fried bass tonight.

Here are the two 34 & 35 inch fish:

Here is the mother of all wind knots:

Here are two more pics that show how beautiful Stripped Bass are:

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!