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Chatham Report?

1K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  sRobbins 
#1 ·
Ok guys,
How you do on your mini clave? Dying to know! Monomy? Morris?

TerryW
 
#2 ·
I fished Chatham this weekend.Monomoy was slow.There was
a huge school of keepers a couple of miles past Chatham light towards Monomoy,about 1/2 mile offshore.
Just look for all the boats.The fish were chasing sand eels to the surface.Dont chase the birds because the fish move fast.You have to drift and keep casting.Intermediate line
worked ok ,you just have to be patient.
Domenic
 
#3 ·
Met bigcat at the causeway Sat AM. Down at the shuttle, Ron, Dave P, and a boatload of anxious anglers were already at the 'bus stop'. John Morin confirmed his attendance on the Rip Trip next saturday and buzzed out on the first bus with Keith at the helm.

Bigcat and I went to the ocean, seeing the massive hordes of birds working the surf. They were 300 yards off shore and the waves were insane, wind hard in our faces. We walked back to the J-K bouy flats. Couple schoolies. Weather was getting funky, the sky was much darker than the water and the wind was howling.

Worked back to the narrows between the outer sandbar and the south beach shore, more schoolies. Just as the vibe was getting stronger, Tom of Rip Ryder flagged us off the beach due to the impending risk of lightning.

Fishingus interruptus!

John and I decided to take advantage of his Race Pt 4x4 sticker. Called Captn Bruce on the way... he was out in that Hitchcock movie with a full charter, a few keepers up to 40" on light gear and fighting off shorts, sand eels everywhere and bass under them. Sometimes it sucks being on shore!

Arrive at Race. Beach / fishing crowd to the inlet at Hatches. Tide just pushing over the bar, looking like it might get good in a couple of hours. Wind 30 mph in the face. One schoolie caught by a bait guy, otherwise dead.

To the backside. Bait all over, birds working - no fish. Over a hundred yards of bait rods lining the camping area, no bent rods. Besides the fishing, absolutely beautiful afternoon on the backside of Race Point. Finished up at Chatham light, bait and birds everywhere, sand eels up to 8-9 inches long but no fish caught by anyone... eelers, chunkers, lure guys... even us fly guys!

World class sunset though. Gotta appreciate the little things.

Sunday -

Met Nick, his freind, Bigcat, Roop, John Morin, and NO Al D (something about wine... or was it whine? <font size="1"> just kidding buddy!</font><!--1-->) It looked like we were going to have some fun. Same as the night before... beautiful conditions, bait everywhere, birds, gorgeous place - no fish.

After a while, those who could stay all day headed for Rip Ryder, big cat and I headed for Morris Island. With only an hour or two to spare, we worked down toward the Stage outlet. I went back to the head of the spit where I did so well last Sat PM, full of bait. Strip, strip bang! Missed it. Several casts later, thunk! 24" schoolie... just a schoolie but if you ever want to appreciate a fish, just go that many hours without a hit in between! I was like a little kid. Saved my no-skunk record a little bit longer.

Bigcat was feeling the pull of responsibility so I kept pushing out to the outlet. The bar to North Monomoy was coming out so I waded out, almost able to reach the first channel. Some schoolies started to bust and I landed a small schoolie. I wanted to wait for the bar to clear but no time left in my day either. The eel guy behind me landed a nice fish and carried it home. 9:30 am, time to head back. I decided to wade to the spot where he caught the fish to check it out on my way out. No way! A series of very deep wave pockets in the sand create a classic hump formation over a hundred yards. No wonder that big fish was sitting there. I had to wade back to cross. Saved the discovery for next time.

Got back to the in-laws cookout early and ran the grill. No burned meat and plenty of brownie points with the better half. Back to the grind, now sitting here on my lunch break thinking "how soon can I get back out to Monomoy?"

SATURDAY! Rip Trip here we come.
 
#4 ·
Juro basically summed it all up on Sunday. Chris and I left the Light with John to head to South Beach. Chris hooked a nice 24 incher on his first SPIN cast and then nothing for either of us for a while. He got another one a little later, but that was it for us for the day. We tried to head out to see John, but he was hoofing over the flats in pursuit of what looked to be some birds, so Chris and I headed home early in order to beat the Cape traffic. Beautiful day with a great sunrise, just wish there was some fish chasing all that bait.
 
#5 ·
I found Monomoy suh-loww this weekend. There were some nice fish around, especially in the crib and out past the fish weirs. Lots of bait. Pretty poor light as far as I was concerned. Saw a decent size shark down the East side. I think that the fishing pressure is starting to have a major effect on the fish, and I'm having to go pretty small/far/fine to catch anything of size.

Juro, I don't know how I always miss you. I'm out there on all of the same days and I usually hit the same spots. I run a yellow Hewes, please give me a wave if you see me.

Caught a one-eyed striper on Saturday. Pretty depressing. Fish passed right under the bow and I threw a cast in his path just for kicks. He gobbled up the fly -- I guess he never saw the boat.

Anyone else notice a conspicuous lack of small blues this year? Hardings should be alive with cocktail-sized fish at this time of year.

Hit all of the bonito haunts just to get in the right frame of mind. This week I'll rig a couple of dedicated bonito rods. I'm confident that if the weather is favorable this week, then they'll be around next weekend.
 
#6 ·
Steve -

Funny I was thinking "wonder if Steve's going to buzz by?". Actually I was thinking about calling and eagle-eyed every flats boat that buzzed by. Thanks for the invite to wave you over - now I'll be waving at every swanky Hewes craft I see! Seriously, I will keep an eye out for you out there and thanks.

The area has definitely taken a downward turn over the last several days. There are mysterious forces at work down there.

The backside bait melee was localized in the Monomoy rips to Chatham inlet area or so it seems. The boats offshore were simply killing them. Inshore, despite incredible amounts of bait - the fish were mysteriously missing. Could it be that the bait hordes in open water were correlated to warmer offshore water temps and thus pulled the inshore fish away from our usual haunts? I wonder if the fish pushed up inside Pleasant Bay and other inlets and rivers to get away from the sudden cold water push? Sand eels that were still alive yet gashed badly by blues and fluke floundered down with the current and even non-diving gulls were picking them up. Others had been de-scaled and battered by bass. They were coming from the bay, but nothing was eating them at the outlets to open sea so much as we could tell. Maybe Minister's Pt was exploding?

On the bayside, Billingsgate has been loaded with big fish lately. P-town commercials are running down to fish on the shoal. Paine's creek flats, which were great last week - have been dead. The majority of the water seems to have shifted back to the westward funnel on the flood and the fish don't seem to run the eastside flat as much anymore according to my good friend from East Dennis. Quivett on the other hand was holding good numbers of large keeper sized bass through the flood with larger sand eels on the sandy shoals around the (dangerous) Quivett creek mouth's offshore flats. These connect with Paine's west channel so this makes sense. They ended up with a 38" for the family get together. Wish I had the week off with a kayak to play with!

Race Pt. was barren of fish, although there was tons of bait and the area is still a gorgeous place and I never regret going there. Bigcat showed me some new water I hope to revisit soon.

I still enjoy every schoolie I get... but this past weekend it was hard work trying to find anything to bite. John and I experienced some really soft takes out on the J-K flats. I'll be ready for this funk to go away... with one silver lining: I haven't enjoyed a 24" schoolie as much as the one that took the skunk off my back on Sunday for a l-o-n-g time!
 
G
#7 ·
Interesting that things seem to be slow for so many of us. I agree with Steve Robbins that the resident fish in the North Monomoy/South Beach area are getting hit pretty hard. These fish are starting to act like trout in a hard hit C&R river. I also have had to go to small flies, light tippet, and longer casts. Had some fish spook at a moving flyrod from 40 feet out!
As Steve knows, I was also out this weekend, and found things to be slow. A few fish off Monomoy flats, but not that many fish around. At least I know it's not just me<g>.

I actually went looking for cold water on Saturday, what with the wind and all, and found some fish in the colder water. On the other hand, Pleasant Bay had some surface feeding schoolies (20") this morning, in very warm water. Go figure. Juro - saw no large fish in PB this morning.

Meatstickers at Nauset spoke of large sandeels and keeper bass near the Inlet.

I'm ready for the tunas!

Aaron
 
#8 ·
Aaron -

Forgot to mention, Sean Fields had a recent trip to the inlet where the venue was sand eels and fly rodders were landing big bass to 40". I was supposed to fish with him Sat PM but the guy is working like a dawg lately with the season in full swing for all three of his jobs.

As far as cold / warm where are the bass logic, certainly in spring and fall the big fish are looking for warm water too. That makes life easy for shore mongers like me. Herring River is a good example of the biggest bass being far up inside - but the herring have something to do with that too.

I wonder if the fish are simply not in the typical places where we fish hardest this time of year, creating the illusion that the fishing is slow? Captn Bruce was fighting them off out in the rips as we were scratching our heads on shore. Sand eels were drifting down with the outgoing (PB), most still alive but fatally wounded; unable to swim so that even gull gulls were plucking them without diving skills.

So many bass offshore, one of these days they are going to come in to eat. They were in as thick as mud between South Beach and Monomoy two weeks ago!

What are the temp differentials from shore to rip? Also, I believe ease of feeding has a lot to do with it based on observations of bass behavior over the years.
 
#9 ·
It will be interesting to see what happens with the tides this weekend. I was down all last week and it seemed unseasonably cool at night for most of the week. Some unusual wind directions (Wed. or Thurs. it was blowing 15-20 from the N. -- whitecaps coming OFF of Hardings). As everyone has said, there is plenty of bait inshore and plenty of bass offshore so it would seem like a matter of time before things connect.

Just checked the marine forecast which has the wind out of E. today and tomorrow at 20kts. -- conditions not exactly encouraging our tuniod friends to come visit.
 
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