Cape Surf Report

[Blitzseeker]

In the interest of getting you all out fishing, I give the following report......

In the interest of you all not joining me on the same hundred yards of beach, I leave out the specific locational details.........

Fished the Cape beaches this weekend. Left work at noon on Friday and met three buddies out there. From high tide through sunset(a few hours) I caught 8 bass, including two "keepers" in the 30-35 inch range. As usual, my "keepers" swam away. Also caught two large shad on the dropper.

Fished again on Saturday from high tide through an hour after sunset. Caught around a dozen bass in one hour in a near blitz situation. Most fish in the 25-26 inch range. When that died down we moved to another spot. Arrived to find what appeared to be snapper bluefish in the surf. The water was exploding everywhere. Upon making a cast, I pulled in a small pollock(yes, a pollock) on my teaser. There were so many of them, it was literally unbelievable. They were chasing bait out of the water, then flopping back in. I could have caught 20 of them with my bare hands. Catching them on a rod and reel proved to be a bit trickier, however, as I only caught five of them. I talked to one old timer who claimed he hadn't seen pollock on the beach in 30 years. There were bass mixed in with this chaos as well, and I got a half dozen more "near keepers" there.

Weather came through Saturday night and killed the fishing. Only got a few stray schoolies on Sunday morning. Tried for bluefish on the way home, but the water was so filled with seaweed/mung that it was unfishable.

For those of you who are not fishing yet because it's "too early", don't bother kidding yourself anymore. There are plenty of fish around, even in spots that it's "too early" for. If the fishing was this good where I was, the spring hot spots must be loaded with fish. I was at one shop when a guy was weighing in a 40 inch fish, and heard at a few other shops of guys catching 40 inch plus fish. These were the exception rather than the rule, but there are a few decent sized fish around. For mid-May, I would characterize the fishing as fantastic.

[JohnR]

Very cool... Great report and reasoning to get out there Blitz... I'm hoping to get into some weakfish the way you had pollock....

We are slowly building up the keeper quotient in Lil' Rhody but the schoolie fishing was weak this year as compared to last... But alot of people are asking my what I'm fishing for and I'll reply "Stripers" and they'll say I won't get any keeper until June. I just smile and say thank you... .

My biggest problem is that I keep forgetting that it's only the middle of May!!!

[fishinfool]

Hey Blitzseeker, glad you ran into some good fishing. If I may ask, what were you using for bait? Hardware? My brothers and I are hoping to get out to the Cape this weekend 5/20 and I could use all the input I can get from you. Thanx

[Fishguts]

Blitzseeker

thanks for bringing back some memories as a youth my father use to pack up the family and bring us to plumb island. we would fish the incoming tide with diamond jigs and catch pollock in the three to five pound class what a great time for a young kid.

I have noticed a lot of people that use droppers. is this an application that is used mainly with jigs or can it be used with swimming plugs and poppers. what are some of the teasers that are used tubing, soft bodies, lead?

[Mike P]

John, so far the weaks have been scarce hereabouts, nothing like 2 years ago when you could go out and target them specifically. Maybe we're just off to a slow start---I hope---or maybe we're heading into another downward cycle. Plenty of rat blues, I'm getting killed on plug losses.

Teasers can be used in conjunction with just about any artificial---sometimes, especially when you have a lot of sand eels or other small bait, the main lure just serves as a casting weight. The best I've found for the Cape beaches are either Red Gills or feather teasers tied on long hackle to mimic the big sand eels.