Sunday, April 28, 2013
Last night I caught my first migratory striped bass of the season. The bass are back, and they will soon be flowing in by the thousands. Are you ready to get out there and start catching?
After a week of trudging around in the muck, rain, wind and cold (and some sun yesterday) I encountered a small school of migratory stripers this evening – and even managed to hook a couple of them. These fish were bright, clean and crawling with sea lice. Odds are that because they had sea lice on them, these striped bass were recently swimming in the open ocean. Sea lice hitch a ride on stripers when they are traveling in the sea, and then hang on for dear life. Holdover stripers, on the other hand, are typically more dull in color and do not have sea lice. I’ll spare you on the long story which involved a few hours of walking through cattails and jumping the muddy ditches that litter many of our area’s estuaries and just cut to the …
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Scorton Ledge and the Parking Lot have produced some nice bass this week-when the fish decide to bite.
What's worse? Not being able to find fish; or finding fish that are unwilling to bite? That's the question a few Scorton Ledge anglers were asking themselves this past Wednesday afternoon. The Ledge was stacked with bass, in usual late summer fashion, after a brisk onshore wind, however the bass would not bite. "My entire fish finder was orange! They were stacked ten feet up from the bottom!" said one excited, and slightly discouraged, angler at the boat ramp. I happily reassured this man that he was not the only angler striking out on these fish. I myself got skunked Wednesday afternoon. Thankfully it was just a reconnaissance trip for an upcoming night excursion, which would ultimately prove more productive. Tales of "lockjaw" …
Saturday, August 6, 2011
The bass fishing this past week was exceptional and slow, depending on who you spoke with. A new world record 81.88 pound striped bass was caught in Connecticut-lets cross our fingers that these fish continue northward to Cape Cod.
The only thing more frustrating than not being able to find fish, is finding fish that are not willing to bite. It seems that this year, more than ever, the bass in Cape Cod Bay have offered only short windows in which they are aggressive, and eager to chomp on an offering. On numerous occasions this past week we found piles of bass, stacked up in deep water, that were unwilling to bite. Due to phospherence in the water, we could actually see these bass cruising around 15-20 feet below the hull of the boat. Needless to say, the sonar screen was stuffed with the orange arches and blotches which indicate big striped bass. As if someone flicked a light switch, these bass would begin feeding, and once again shut it down based on factors only …
Saturday, July 30, 2011
It took a lot of patience and persistence this past week to put bass in the boat. The fish are there, however they are proving difficult to entice.
Striped bass are elusive fish that are often difficult to locate. Half the battle is finding the fish in the first place. The other half of the battle is figuring out a way to make them bite. Unfortunately, during the middle of the summer, stripers often have "lockjaw." Often times fishermen find themselves scratching their heads, wondering how it is possible to troll through an enormous school of bass without enticing a single strike. Lockjaw can drive a fisherman nuts! But even fish do not feed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Bass, like all animals, need time to rest. Sometimes the best thing us fishing addicts can do is cross our fingers, and pray that the school of fish on the fish-finder is actively feeding, and not in rest …
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Striped bass fishing in Cape Cod Bay was challenging this past week. Yet fishermen who were willing to put in their time were able to connect with fish well into the 20 and 30 pound range.
The bass are out there; however, this week's breezy conditions made it difficult to get to them. As far as Cape Cod Bay is concerned, stripers are holding in fairly deep water. Most of the bass, in the stretch from the canal to Billingsgate, will be found in water depths of 55 feet, or deeper still. This makes it difficult to locate the fish, and stay with the bass once you find them. We were fortunate to get into some decent size fish this past week. Yet to be transparent, it took a lot of time and some serious effort to get those bass to the boat. To say I spent a few hours staring at my sonar screen would be a severe understatement. Yet,hearing the drag scream after hooking up with a corky 35 pound fish makes the wait well worth it. The…
