There are quite a few stories to tell from my trip to Cape Cod. I am sure that many of them will come out over the next couple of days. A few of them might even need a little nudging to be recalled.
All in all we had a cracking time, with the first wave of four getting into fish before we had even unpacked our bags. We passed a spot on the way to the house and had a look. We agreed this would be our first port of call. Stopped at the house and dumped the bags and were soon into stripers and blues.
Goose with his first blue fish
I had my first striper that evening, whilst wandering one of the nearby spits of sand which juts out into the ocean. No one was around to take the picture, so I quickly composed a shot and measure the fish at 24” before letting it swim off.
When the second wave appeared, we had plenty of tales of fish to tell, and the excitement built at the prospect of catching tonnes of fish. The next day we headed over to South Beach to fish the flats there. A theme would build for the next few days of heavy fog and mist which would make the fishing hard. We had to walk some miles each and every day in search of fish.
That evening after supper and some drinks at the Chatham Squire, which would become our second home for the remainder of out time there, we all went back to the location of our first evenings success for some evening fishing.
Once again everyone got into fish, some of them would put a nice bend into the rods.
Early on before the light failed we would get into the stripers. Later when darkness fell, the blues would patrol the shore less than 10 yards from the water line. Many of us would loose flies that evening, after moments of explosive fun.
Days of getting up at 4am and fishing till after 9pm took their toll and out energy started to flag.
We took a day of to spend some money at the shops, heading over to saltwater Edge in Newport, Rhode Island and the Bearsden in Taunton, MA.
Reinvigorated we headed over to the flats on North Monomoy where we found the most amazing expanse of flats. Just at this time the weather decided to become clear and sunny; providing us with our first day of true sight fishing. A lot of the guys caught their first sighted fish on this and the next day on North Monomoy. A truly amazing experience and what we came out for. The excitement reached new levels on these days, and in my view, these were the best days fishing we had. Although perhaps we did not catch so many fish.
I have to give big thanks to Pete Vicar for allowing me to come and share his guided day. Not only was Pete great company, he also allowed me to catch my best fish of the trip. Amongst my haul were two 28” stripers the first one lean and weighed in at 8lb, the second one fat at about 9½lb having fed on a menhaden shoal that was being harassed by seals, blues and stripers all day. One of the blues I caught was estimated at 8lb.
The second, fatter striper had been amongst a bunch of blues ripping apart a menhaden Pete had just released. It was quite a sight seeing a shoal of menhaden being herded all day long, busting the surface and getting torn to bits when we hooked onto them.
All in all it was a great week, with some superb, albeit challenging fishing. The guys were all great company and I must thank them for making it such an enjoyable occasion. I must also thank many of the forum members who I met for some drinks and lies. All were a great laugh and provided much entertainment with a quite a few wise words of advice which helped us to make the occasion such a successful one. It really felt like home, well after we had redecorated…
