Looking for the Fish...
By: Capt. Hap Farrell
In Every fishing season there comes a time when the fish in Cape Cod Bay are a little hard to find. However, we do manage to find them. One thing we have in the charter business is mutual cooperation. When one boat from any of the major harbors like Welfleet, Sesuit, Rock Harbor, and Barnstable find fish they will notify the other boats what they found and what is working best. This keeps us apprized of what the fish are doing and where they are. This is a good thing.
Lately, most of the striped bass down near Rock Harbor have been on the west end of Billingsgate Shoals. This may be starting to change. There has been some activity in the deep water west of Great Island called the Square. Before we had to use a 450 foot jigging set up to hook up on the stripers there. It was the only method that worked well. The same held true on the west end of the shoals. Now the umbrella rig is starting to work, especially in the deep water. Also, more bluefish have started to show up and they are the really big ones. Just steam out to the north edge of the shoals and get in 50 feet of water and work your way up towards the Path staying in the 50 foot depth. Also, there are some good sized bluefish in 15 to 20 feet of water right at the Path. I hope they work their way into the area off the Eastham shore so we don't have to travel so far.
I had the occasion to fish up by P-town this last week. It was last Monday to be exact. There were just myself and Captain Kirstyn Costa on the Liberty and a few small boats fishing in front of the Bath House. The fishing was very good. We landed a large number of bass with most of the fish ranging from 30 to 35 inches. Most of them were around 33 inches. Good dinner size fish. Last Tuesday was the first day of commercial season on the stripers so I imagine that place was bumper to bumper with boats if it was not to windy, which it was in the morning. However, the afternoon was a lot less windy so I imagine that area was crowded.
I think next week will be a very good week. The tides are not very strong so the fish will not be pushed around. The bluefish seem to be making a showing so that fishery will increase and we'll find that fish in more areas. I also think the bass will show back up on Billingsgate shoals on a more regular basis. Just hope we don't get much wind.
I had two groups out this week that showed a lot of enthusiasm in the sport of fishing. The first was Jen Franzen, who manages Cloud Nine Video Rentals in the Orleans Market Place, and her friend Nate. They both landed a number of striped bass with more than six being legal sized to keep. They kept the four largest and released the others. The second was Keith Tallberg and his crew. They were the ones that went to P-town. By the end of the trip all their arms were extremely sore.
If you want to get in on this good fishing call me at: 508-240-8267 or 508-255-6211.
