Fish Tales

MV Derby Oct 3 10

2010-10-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

Fished the morning with David Kinney, author of "The Big One", the definitive book about the Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. It's a great read even if you're not a fisherman or woman.

We tried West Chop but way too windy almost even for spinning gear so we shot over to Bigt Bridge where the wind was from behind and off the left. Still tough throwing. Not much happening so we went back to Cleveland House for breakfast. Try the South Shore in a bit.

MV Derby Oct 2 10

2010-10-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Wind howling out of the north this morning so nothin doing on the north shore. Fished BIg Bridge for while and got a couple of undersize bass, one Blue and somethin I couldn't identify. (Real(Really.) Went back to Cleveland House and had some breakfast and went out with my wife to do a few things. Wound up back at the bridge for another two hours or so. Pretty slow. Had dinner back at State Road - cassoulet with a bottle of High Hook Pinot Noir. Perfect combo and a really good meal.

2010 Derby

2010-10-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

I may be double posting this. Anyway, I spent the morning trying to get an Albie from shore. There still hasn't been a single one caught from shore with a fly rod this year. I got one good shot but didn't hook up. Blew like crazy and now raining like crazy. Supposed to move through quickly and be nice all weekend. I had a great lunch at the State Rd Restaurant. Fried green tomato BLT. Delicious! Had a bottle of Pinot Noir soda with it. High Hook Wines will continue to be involved in this great event. More tomorrow.

June 30, 2010 Outer Cape

2010-06-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a great day! Fished the white cabins again. I hate looking at the same geography all the time, but the fush are where they are. Fur of us in the boat so no fly rods today. 7 1/2 " pink Slog-Gos. Absolutely hammered them all through the rising tide from about 8:00 to 12:00. Cant even count the number of fish we caught and probably 8 were "keepers". NW wind is always good to me out here.

Jun 26 Outer Cape

2010-06-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

We got an early start getting skunked today. Fished hard along the beach from Wood End to Long Point with a few followers and no hook-ups. Took qa break for breakfast at the Coffee Pot and headed for White's Cottages. Found lots of fish, mostly Stripers and some big Blues toward the top of the tide. They seemed to be in a pretty narrow band in about 16' of water. Had to keep drifting through. Too windy for the long rods so it was pink Slug-gos al day. Got 4 "keepers" and a bunch of high Schoolies. All in all a good day.

Barnstable Harbor May 28 - Jun 11

2010-06-17T02:38:00.000-07:00

What a difference a year makes. The weather was more or less great but the fishing not so much. The fitst week was slow. I got one really nice fish, about 20 lbs, on a big ass baitfish pattern on the south side of Horseshoe, but that was most of the excitement. Second week was better. Lots of fish on the east flat with good sightfishing. We also did some days on the Brewster Flat and Monomoy. Lots of schoolies in Brewster and lots of Blues on Monomoy, some of them real bruisers. All in all a good trip and also a good High Hook selling trip. I'll be on the Cape from June 2th thru July 9th and I'll post everyday.

Derby continued

2009-10-20T08:07:00.001-07:00

There weren't a lot of fish weighed in the last few days, even by the guys fishing with bait. The low pressure jsut shut it down. But all in all, I had a great time and I'm looking forward to getting back next year.

There are plenty of places to stay this time of year at very low prices and you can eat pretty cheaply as well, so it's not like it costs an arm and a leg. Two people in a car or pickup truck is about $175 roung trip on the ferry out of Wood's Hole. Make reservations well in advance to make sure you get the times you want. Check www.mvy.com for places to stay.

Really, this is a lot of fun and you should give it a try.

Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby

2009-10-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you've never been involved in this you really ought to give it a shot. It's not a high-powered fishing tournament. Sure, there are some people who probably take it too seriously, but they're in the minority. Mostly, it's a bunch of great guys who love to fish, talk about fishing, fish, talk about fishing.....you get the idea. All the proceeds go to the Derby Scholarship Fund.

This was the first year we've been involved as a sponsor and we're in for good. The people who organize the event are the nicest bunch of people I've ever met. They're friendly, welcoming, generous and just out and out nice. I spent most of my time with Wilson Kerr and he couldn't have been more accomodating. He fished with me for about 2 solid days, showed me the whole island, hot spots for each of the four species involved, the whole deal. Great guy and fellow fly-rodder.

I know what you're thinking. What about the fishing? It pretty much sucked. Those back-to-back Noreasters that shot through completely screwed u pthe fishing. I got 1 Striper, the first night I was there. Nice fish at about 31 1/2", but just undet the limit to weigh in at the Derby.

Cape Cod Bay

2009-07-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

Knocked em dead yesterday. I spent a lot of time fishing and not catching anything. I found a lot of fish but just couldn't get them to take anything. Then I decided to hit the Bluefish off of Days Cottages. What I found was hundreds of Stripers and lots of pretty big ones. They were almost daisy-chaining, like Tarpon. Anyway, I caught so many fish I got tired. I wound up with 5 "keepers" and dozens of high-schoolie - all quality fish. After a couple of hours it became mostly Blues and In got a bazillion of them. Totally exhausted by the end of the day. They were hitting just about everything I nthrew at them - Clousers, sand eels, poppers. A total blast.

Outer Cape

2009-07-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Things were a bit slow for the first few days we were here. Believe it or not, we had trouble finding Bluefish. However, we did, and hannered them pretty good. Here's where to look for them - straight off of Days Cottages in P'twon. Just start in about 10 feet of water and head out intil you find them. You'll see a transition area. Head out from there. Lot's of fun. No huge fish bit a lot of 6-8 pounders.

We've found Stripers in a bunch of places - near the #3 can in P'town, but mostly between Long Point and Wood End. They're gourging on sand eels, so use something that maybe at least looks like a sand eel. Start at the beach and drift out over the edge. You'll find them. Once again, lots of Blues but some really big Stripers mixed in. Tan or olive clousers work well, Pamet Specials, things like that and mostly on the ebb.

There are lot of fish out in the rip at Race Point but we couldn't catch them. We had lots of followers but no takes. I tried at least 12 different patterns, had a lot of followers but no hits. Good luck with that.

Barnstable

2009-07-10T06:07:00.000-07:00

This is pretty late info but I'm just getting this up and running. I was in the Barnstable area the last week in May and the first in June. The weather was pretty lousy except for Memorial day but we did a lot of fishing anyway. We caught a lot of fish, all on the fly rods, and several keepers. I got a few fish on Deceivers but almost every fish we caught was on some sort of a sand eel pattern. The best fly of the trip was a Clouser tied with huge, heavy eyes so that it was more of a jig. Basically two olive hackles, two striped olive hackles and olive Marabou all tied behing the big eyes. Use red thread and build the head up with epoxy, Hard head or whatever you like. I also fish with a 350 grain line while most of my friends use intermediate sinkers and I always catch more fish. In fact, I used to fish almost exclusively with the intermediate and since I switched to the 350 I catch a lot more fish.
We caught very few fish in the Meat Tunnel and the ones we did get were at the east end. Most of the action for us was at Horseshoe - the north rip on the incoming and the south rip on the outgoing. We also got a bunch sight fishing on the west flat.
We also had one great day at Monomoy on the outgoing. I don't count, but I must have caught two dozen fish, 3 of them over 30 inches, the rest high schoolies. The biggest fish of the trip was caught that day by my winemaker, Stephen Cary. 38 inches. He was on the other side of the bar from me and I could hear him hootin' and hollerin' the whole time he was playing that fish. Good stuff.
I'll be up in Truro the last two weeks in July and I'll try to post everyday.