The Bay Came Alive...
By: Capt. Hap Farrell
Remember that I said if we got some sun and it warmed a bit the Bay might explode... Well. it did. The party that booked the Osprey on the full day trip was fortunate to witness fishing that is rarely seen. Pods of good size stripers everywhere you looked. There were so many fish that they had to stop using the umbrella rig because they'd get three to five keepers on each rig. They went to single plugs to keep things at a dull roar. Now that's good fishing. The half day trip was nowhere near as active but still very productive. There were fish on the South Edge of the Shoals and about a half mile off the Brewster Flats about half way between Rock Harbor and Sesuit Harbor.
As the weather improves and warms so will the activity of the stripers. The body of fish that was off Barnstable Harbor will slowly move to the east and wind up in an area called the New Grounds. This area is about three miles west of where the old Target Ship was. They should stay in this area for a week or so and then move north. The North Edge of the Billingsgate Shoals will become very active at that point, I hope. Also the deep water off the shoals should start producing some good sized stripers. At this point we should start to see a fair amount of bluefish show up. One bluefish was landed last weekend in the bay so they are just starting to arrive.
What is the best lure system to use? To find where the most concentration of fish is the umbrella rig is the best system to use. Put it on your 150 foot wire set up or 200 foot set up depending on the water depth. If you are fishing west of the ship, the south edge in the deeper water or the north edge of Billingsgate Shoals, use the 200t foot wire rod. If you are fishing along the Brewster Flats, inside Barnstable Harbor, or up by the three and five cans heading into Welfleet, use your 150 foot rod because the water there can get as shallow as 15 feet. The other lure that has worked well for me is the green mackeral swimming plug or the pearl colored bomber. Some of the plastic lures will work also, like the pink or while Ronzi. If you find fish on the surface most popping plugs work well.
I have not heard much from the Provincetown area other than there is a lot of small mackeral in the harbor itself. From what I've been told most of the fishermen from up that way are heading for the Path out around 50 feet of water and down towards Billingsgate Shoals. I'm sure this will change quickly as the water warms up.
This last week I had my mate Mark and a friend of his Pete out for the half day and we did well off the Brewster Flats down by the Church Spire Ground. We easily got our limit of six fish. The next day I had Tom Goodrou from the Goose Hummock out to get him a fish. He got two with one of the stripers being almost 36 inches. The fish are here,
If you'd like to get in on some of this fishing call me at 508-240-8267 and we'll try and get you out.
