We were on a sand bar at Nauset Inlet where we had just picked up a few fish. The surf was fairly benign so I gabbed my binoculars to look around. To the northeast there were birds working over bait. I handed the binoculars to Doug, so he could see. The decision was very easy to make, we headed out. Joey and Jim behind us. Doug got there first and immediately hooked up. It was terrific fishing with stripers averaging 32"!
We had always heard that the fishing at Cape Cod was spectacular. Doug, one of our fishing buddies, told us in more than a dozen trips he had never been disappointed. So we made arrangements to go in June, just before school let out. It was going to be Joey, Doug, Jim and myself So we loaded up the kayaks and we were all going to meet in the central Cape area. Doug took the ferry across from Long Island, and Jim who could only make 2 days, was going to come up Monday night. The rest of us departed on Sunday. Doug was a few hours ahead of us so he went down to Chatham Light to do a little reconnaissance. Via cell phones we stayed in touch. We got a place to stay in Orleans, as it would give us good access to a variety of places, due to its central location. Cape Cod has 3 exposures: the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Sound that separates it from the Islands of the Elisabeth's, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, and then the inside Cape Cod Bay.
Our buddy Steve was spending a few weeks up at the Cape and we wanted to coordinate some fishing with him too. So we settled in and gave Steve a call. We were going to meet him for a little evening fishing up in the Pamet area. When we got there our choices were to hit the Cape Cod Bay side in Pamet Harbor, where there were lots of fish (but nothing large), or go to Pamet Beach on the Atlantic, and try for larger fish. Steve had caught his largest striper on the long wand there. The group voted for the beach. We got a few fish and Joey lost a really large striper. The surf was rough and he couldn't control the approximately 20 pound fish on the 8 ?4' steelhead rod he was testing. Next time bigger gear.
Monday, our first full day, we decided to start at Chatham Light and work south towards Monomoy. We got a relatively early start and headed south. We caught an occasional fish but nothing much. We stopped at one beach and picked up a few fish and then went down to the inlet area. Here we ran into the seals. They were everywhere, hundreds of them. I hadn't seen so many since my days in Baja. So we landed the yaks on North Monomoy and fished the deep water there. Doug started picking up schoolies on jigs so we all put on heavy lures. We got several fish and then we got a visit from a Federal Officer. Turns out we weren't allowed to step foot on the Island. We hadn't read the signs that were way above us, figuring that they were like the others we had seen, which said not to go beyond them. So we hopped in the yaks and went out the inlet as we decided to take the ocean back north. We passed a seal colony and the entire colony decided to parallel us at a distance of 20-30'. It was strange but after a while our escorts lost interest. The ocean was to rough so we turned around and made our way back north taking the route we hadn't taken before. We had come down the east side so now we would return to the west. So we once again we had to run the gauntlet of seals. One curious female swam right up to my kayak and actually pushed on the rudder for a while. Our first stop resulted in a few fish and Joey got a nice one around 30". He caught it on what was to become the best lure combo of the trip. Lunker City's new jig heads, with the eyes built in, with the small shaker tails in ice. It was a slim lure with lots of action and a good imitation of the prevalent sand eels. As we were crossing a flat I saw a bunch of nice fish and yelled. Doug cast and got an immediate hook up. So we hopped off our yaks, in the 2-3' water, and did some fishing. Doug did the best with at least 5 stripers up to 33". When the fishing stopped we continued north, saw more fish on flats, but didn't hook up much. So we got back to Chatham Light and it was back to the room.
We ate some food, relaxed a bit and then gave Steve a call. He was heading to Pamet Beach for some late afternoon/early evening surf action. We decided that we'd stop up and see what was up. I almost didn't go, as I was feeling the 8-10 miles of paddling to Monomoy, and this was only day one. I would have really regretted it and I'm glad I decided to go. We all went out and had our 11' surf rods. As we hit the beach, small herring were laying in the wash and everyone said that we had missed it. It was a spectacular blitz, with big stripers in the wash. So we walked several yards down the beach and I threw in a cast and had an immediate hook up. We ended up catching a lot of bass. Dozens and dozens of them, and only a few were less than 10 pounds. We know this because Doug was weighing them. The fish were out far, in the middle and in the wash. Our hot lure turned out to be Storm Wildeyes in the 4" size. After a while Steve joined us and between the 4 of us we easily caught between 75 and 100 fish up to 20 pounds. I sure wish that I had my fly rod, as this was a perfect opportunity to get big fish on it. We were exhausted from the Monomoy excursion, so we left good fishing to get some rest. It was a great first day of fishing. I could get used to this. Jim arrived that night and we made plans to try somewhere else the following day. So many places too fish and to little time.
Tuesday's destination was Pleasant Bay and Storm Island. The wind was from the northwest, so both it and the tide were behind us. So getting out to Storm was easy. Unfortunately nobody was getting any fish so we made a plan to get back early and head up to Pamet with the yaks and take them out into the ocean. We wanted to get some big fish from the kayaks and Steve's early morning trip there reported big schools of bass blitzing a ways off the beach. We wanted to see if those big bass were still around. We headed back to our launch spot against both wind and tide. It wasn't fun but Doug and I did fine in our Wilderness Systems Tarpons. The long fast hulls and the rudders had an advantage over Joey's Scupper and especially Jim's Cobra Fish in Dive. I told Jim that he needed some seasoning anyway, as we experienced a very full day the day before. After some food it was off to Pamet. The ocean was calm so we launched. Joey and Doug had immediate hook ups so we figured that it was going to be another excellent session. Unfortunately we managed fewer than 10 fish and they were smaller than the evening before. The school had moved on. So we called it an early day and made plans for the next day.
When Steve discovered that we had private access to Town Cove, via our lodging, plans were made to launch there and work the various areas on the way out to Nauset Inlet. We packed lots of gear, water and food, not knowing what we'd find. We were prepared for almost anything. I had 2 spin rods, a surf rod and a fly rod with me. I really appreciated the storage capacity of the Tarpon. I could lay a fully rigged fly or surf rod in its hull. So we started out mid morning taking advantage of the start of the out going tide. The flat just beyond the launch had fish on it. In fact most of the flats had fish, but we only managed an occasional hookup. We eventually made it to the inlet where we took advantage of our SOTs and hopped off on one of the sandbars. Joey picked up a couple of fish and I dropped one. There was a lot of very interesting water but the fish weren't there at the moment. That's when I took out the binoculars and spotted the birds out to the northeast and the fun meter went up a few notches. Steve was in a canoe and didn't feel that the open ocean was a good idea. So he went back into the bay to fish the flats and ended up with 20 or so fish. We went out to where the birds were working over breaking fish and caught a lot of fish. Close to one hundred and they averaged well over 30 inches! It was fantastic fishing. Initially we would throw Storm Wildeyes at the fish as they broke surface. We weren't sure what they were eating but if we dropped a Wildeye on their heads we got a reaction strike. Then Doug, who had the only fish finder, marked lots of fish on the bottom. Dropping a jig down turned out to be the ticket. The biggest fish of the day was Jim's. He weighed it on a Boga and it was 20 pounds. We had steady action until it was time to catch the tide back up to our launch site. So we headed back in and repeated hitting various spots until we were back where we started. Our excursion had encompassed almost 11 hours. Great Day.
Jim had to work the next day so he took off in the morning for the haul south. We didn't have anything to think about. The previous day had been so good that we were going to do it again. Our departure would be an hour later to accommodate the tide. We saw even more fish on the flats but with the incredibly clear water it's a fly rod situation and small flies. So we made our way down to the inlet and there were a lot of fish around. Joey had a big fish take a jiggy but it came off. We still weren't hooking up much so we prepared to head out to the birds working in the same area we had fished the previous day. I was the last to go out and it turns out when Joey and Doug crossed the flat to the breakers it was covered with thousands of bass. I left 5 minutes later and they had moved off. The ocean session was very similar to the previous day except that the fish were a little smaller. The average was right around 30 inches. The hot lure was the Lunker City head and the shaker tail. So I caught a few on the spin gear and then broke out a fly rod. I got several bass that were all clones of one another. All 30 inches, plus or minus and inch. What a blast on the fly rod. All were caught on the troll using a 10 foot LC-13 head in front of an intermediate line. It was a real mishmash of a setup as the rod was a 10 weight and the line was a 9. I used the head to load the rod. With the size of these fish I didn't want to use my 8 weight. Finally our bladders got the best of us and Joey and I headed in. Doug had paddled way up wind and current with the school and he said that it was exhilarating. The fish were cruising along with him and they'd occasionally take a sand eel that had fled the bottom. Just watching and accompanying the fish was a blast he said. He caught a lot of them too. So we hit the inlet where a couple of guys were fly fishing. They were hooking up every cast. I spoke with them and they said that they had each caught at least 30 fish up to 45". Not a bad outing. So back up the bay we went. I hooked into a nice fish just inside the inlet. It actually broke me off. So we stopped and fished a while. A few follows but nothing more. So we worked our way back to the launch and called it a day. It was still another terrific day of fishing.
That was my first Cape Cod experience. I'm hooked, and so is Joey. Doug already knew. It may have been Joey and my first trip, but it won't be our last. I'm already exploring spending next summer up there. There are so many places we didn't get to fish. The entire inside of Cape Cod bay didn't get a visit from us. As I look back at the best fishing trips I've had for stripers, 3 of the sessions I had here rank amongst my top ten. Not too shabby for one trip! It's a fantastic kayak fishing destination. I recommend it highly.