Rock Harbor Fishing Report
By: Capt. Hap Farrell
On Their Way Home...
For the past week or so it has been a little harder to find any amount of legal size stripers. There has been a lot of small fish on the north edge of Billingsgate Shoals on the southwest end. A few legal fish have been found in this area but very few.
Lately, this has started to change. Bigger fish, up to 36 inches, have been taken in this area in the past few days. What is even a better sign that the bass are coming back is that large schools of these fish have been found in the deep water off the north edge. At first they would not take anything, but now they will hit the umbrella rig occasionally. From what I hear this has been happening all over the Cape. I wonder if the stripers had a convention somewhere and are now just getting back from it.
With the bass being on vacation the charter fleet has turned its attention on the bluefish. Fortunately, there are a large amount of bluefish and they can be found in most areas. The biggest concentration is up by the Path in the Welfleet/Truro line. However, they can be found in the Sunken Meadow area, off the Brewster Flats, on top of Billingsgate Shoals, and in by Henderson's Rock just off Great Island. Single hootchies on mono trolled at around 5 1/2 to 6 knots will work just fine. If you're looking for small bluefish, by the way they are the tastiest, you'll find them on the east end of the shoals in 10 to 15 feet of water up on top of the shoals. Jigging, trolling hootchies or the tube and worm will work very well here. If the water is deep enough, anywhere over 15 feet, I'd use the umbrella rig to find the most active area and then switch over to your favorite lure system.
This has been somewhat of an unusual season. By now we would normally be looking in the grass patches on top of Billingsgate Shoals for the bigger bass. Either jigging or the tube and worm would be used in the area. So far, we've only found the bass on the shoals in any real volume once. That was earlier this month right after a fairly heavy northerly wind. We have not had a real cold front come through which brings this wind to the Bay. Most of our wind this season has been from the west and southwest. As soon as we get a north to northwest wind with some guts to it look to the top of Billingsgate Shoals. The big bass should be there.
Last weekend John Shakliks, Captain of the Luau, took two groups out for a half day trip. Both the MacDonalds and the Williams booked the trip through Roxanne at the Rock Harbor Charter Service (508-255-9757) and they drew the Luau. They were fortunate that Captain Shakliks had some sea clams with him that day. These four people were treated to a new way to capture these hard to find striped bass. Capt. Shakliks, who has perfected this method got over in the area where the seas clammers were working and landed both groups all the legal bass they needed.
I had another group that our booth had booked for me. Joanne Broderick, from Orleans and her son-in-law, J.C. Derrick, from Troy, N.Y. along with Chuck Gorski and his son Clay, from Batavia, N.Y. enjoyed a good day of fishing on top of Billingsgate Shoal. We had a slight northerly wind so the stripers moved up on the shoals along with a good number of bluefish. Everyone on the boat landed a legal sized striper. Clay landed his first ever striped bass which put a grin on his face that went from ear to ear.
If you'd like to get in on these newly arrived stripers give me a call at: Cell: 508-240-8267 ot Home: 508-255-6211.
www.capecodbaycharters.com
