Fishing Cape Ann

[Fly Rod]

Fishing off of Gloucester, Mass., Cape Ann has been excellent if you like cod and haddock fishing. The sports have been getting their individual limit of cod(10 per person)and the haddock with no limit. Most of the fishing has been off of the famous Stellwagon Bank known as Midddlebank to the locals. Also while fishing in the area you should take a camera, there have been plenty of humpback whales putting on a display while feeding on sand eels.

Schoolie Striped Bass are starting to show up along our coast. The big fish 25-50 pounders should be arriving the middle of May, usually arriving around Mother's Day. In Massachusetts you are allowed two striped bass over 28" per person.

Flounder fishing in the outer harbor is starting to pick up allowing 8 fish per person.Flounders have a sweet white meat which is excellent when fried or broiled.

 

[capt sam]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

Good to hear FR, hopefully everyone has a productive summer.

 

[rolmops]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

Captain Richard,get that boat ready and start looking for mackerel.you know that the stripers will be there in another 2 weeks.

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

Hello rolmops! Hope all is well with you.

The mac's are almost here and when they arrive the bigger stripers will be here too. I have clients calling and wanting to know if it is time to soak a line. The elwifes are here and the smaller stripers came with them which normally happens. It's nice catching them 3-5 pounders on the fly.

The recreational fishing for cod has been super, yesterday there had to be over a hundred boats out on Stellwagon all clustered together. The weather conditions for the last couple of days couldn't have been better for off shore fishing.

 

[jonesg]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

Huge schools of bait off Wollaston beach with birds working them the past few days. The water around Boston is quite warm , here they come.

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

jonesg

Water tempertures here have been as high as 50.7 degrees according to the weather bouy approximately 5 miles off Gloucester, today the temp is 48.6 I'm making a couple of my own Sabiki rigs that work when others will not. I use a #4 stainless mustard hook, 20lb. test flouro and crystal flash, six hooks tandum and a 4-6oz. jig. It is deadly on the Mac's.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

I hope the big Stripers do show for you.

They certainly didn't show up here this Spring in force. The number of fish was way down. Catching 3-4 fish a day as opposed to 10-15 fish in a half a day last year. First noticed the numbers where way down at the CCBT complex last winter. Something is wrong.

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

Last year was basically slow on the inshore fishing, inside three miles, my thought is that the last four years the bank out here(12 miles out) has been loaded with sand eels. no reason for the stripers to come along the shore. There are thousands of big stripers on the bank.

The majority of the striper mass summer here, some go to New Hampshire and Maine but the main body stays here till the end of September.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

75% of the East Coast population shows up every Spring to spawn in the Chesapeake before they head your way for the summer. When we see dramatic drops in the numbers as we've seen the past two Springs there is a problem.

There as enough concern after last years showing that they put additional gear restrictions in place on us this Spring. I guess we'll know for sure when the YOY index comes out later this year.

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: Fishing Cape Ann

I understand the concern. Have read about a disease down your way, a reddish rash that the striped bass seem to get. And I had seen a program where guides have been complaining about loss of memory from handling the bass that have the disease in the past 3-4 years. The problem here is that when areas over populate they have a grayish slime that gets all over the deck once landed.

I feel that we have been spoiled over the last five years or so with great recreational harvest of these fish. Also I believe in cycles, so many years on the up swing and then a down turn. All wildlife has cycles. And can the striped bass sustain the pressure? Recreational fishermen catch over 25 million lbs., 6% die from catch and release, that is a lot of fish. and then you have the draggers, herring boats, pogie boats and gillnetters that catch and kill the stripers as their incidental catch.

Up here boats go behind the draggers when they are hauling back their nets and you will catch 30 huge stripers and when the enviromental police show up the boats scatter and most times they only can stop one boat

And then we ask our selves, why is there a decline? To much pressure.