Fishing Cape Cod Bay... "2010"
By: Capt. Hap Farrell
The 2010 fishing season in Cape Cod Bay is slowly coming to an end. The fishing is still very good for both bass and bluefish, but the charter business is only really active on the weekends. The fish don't know this, so they are just feeding as much as possible getting ready for their migration south.
This season was a little odd. One area that has always been very active, especially for bluefish, is the shallow water off the Eastham shore out to the #3 and #5 cans, in the Sunken Meadow area, and up towards Welfleet Harbor. I was in this area on Sept. 7th and I found one big bluefish and a 30 inch striper. I had Miss Anne MacDonald with me who used to be a fill in mate for the charter boats out of Rock Harbor. She landed both fish using a single hootchie on 6 colors of lead core line. I did not find much more fishing this area for about an hour.
One of the areas in Cape Cod Bay that has been constantly active has been Billingsgate Shoals. I've mentioned this before. It continues to be so. Jigging with 300 feet of wire is the most productive method, but single hootchies or the umbrella rig will work also. All summer we'd check this area first before moving on to other spots.
The other very active area has been from Wood End to Race Point up by P-town and The Cottages, which is on the east end of P-town Harbor. Either area has produced large stripers and bluefish. Here jigging or the tube and worm work well. This area will remain active until the end of September and even into the early part of October.
One other area that seems to become fairly active in the later part of the season, late August and through September, is the West Bar of Barnstable Harbor. This area can produce some really big stripers. This year some of the fish have weighed in at 45 to 47 pounds. That is a big fish. On the 6th of September Anne MacDonald and I fished this area during the flood tide. It only took us 30 to 40 minutes to land 4 keepers all over 34 inches. We released the fish under that size. After getting our limit Anne used my light jigging set up and we landed more good size keeper which were released also.
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capthap@capecodbaycharters.com
