Cape Cod week 26 – 2013

For the third year in a row a trip to Cape Cod for striped bass or stripers as they are nicknamed. This time with the rookies Lasse, Henning and Thomas. Thomas had fished for stripers two day about four years ago but without luck so he is also labeled as a rookie.

Thomas had rented this Jeep at Dollars and we can´t recommend either. The Company tried to get us to buy more and more and the car did not have the roof rail that was promised. And the car was actually too small for normal grown-ups which normally is not a problem in the States. Here we are outside Scotts house planning the coming days.

The first afternoon Lasse had a very nice hook-up on one of the flats

The fish was like almost all bigger fish pulled on to the sand bar

Here he presents his first “keeper” which is a fish above the allowed size which is 28 inches so all keepers are really nice fish. this was a 33½ inch fish.

despite it was a keeper it was released like everything else we caught

and it took off in a splash.

In the evening Thomas hooked his second keeper and he had a very hard time not to show his happiness which is a blessing

The baitfish was sandeels which popped out of the sand when when the tide pulled out turning the sand bars into a smorgasbord for the sea gulls

We used allmost only flat wing flies to imitate the sandeels, here a view in Thomas´s fly box.

Thomas had a hard time finding the sadlle feathers at a reasonable price so he bought a dry fly neck and on the internet he had found a recipe on how to dye the feathers with Kool-aid. It was something with adding a bit vinegar and then put it into a micro wave oven. It worked very well and he could control the intensity of the colours by the time in the micro wave oven and the colours did not fade when exposed to salt water or the sun.

We fished most of the times on flats or sand bar that only could be waded at low tide and therefore the tide chart is the bible for the striper fishermen and  despite we were told that the night fishing was much better than day time fishing we sticked mostly to day time fishing. It does not ruin your sleep and you have the visual aspect which adds a dimension.

We did not catch as many schoolies as last year but naturally the majority was not keepers. But even the schoolies can put of a decent fight on our 8-weight rods.

Another schoolie caught when the weather was fine.

One day the weather forecast predicted a not too heavy wind and we rented and borrowed kayaks and here we (Scott, Bruce, Lasse, Henning and myself) are ready to start early in the morning. From my experience last year this could be the highlight of the week with sightfishing in shallow water.

On the first bar we did catch some big schoolies but on the second beach we found good sized fish cruising into the very shallow water. First Lasse got a keeper and a bit later it was my turn.

Same procedure as last year …

  and away it swims in a big splash.

That day Henning also got a keeper and then we had got at least one and that was one of my hopes for the trip. The problem with this fantastic sight fishing after good sized stripers is that it spoils you. The following days we did not feel the ususal urge to go out on the flats and blind fish so the fishing intensity went down and the beer drinking intensity went up.

at the end of the kayak trip this big grey seal showed up and that is not improving the fishing

Lasse and I one morning fished a river mouth in very bad weather. The photo do not show how bad the weather was – at time the wind made the rain feel like needles stuck into your bag despite we wore jackets.

That morning we ran into some bluefish – not big ones but in the 22 inch range. Some cut the leader but I was lucky to get a couple.

We also fished other than sand bars, here I got a nice 31 inch fish at a rocky point with plenty of current.

There were many ospreys in the area and several times we saw ospreys flying with fish in the claws

A close up of the star of the show. We had a fantastic trip with World class sight fishing, everyone got keepers, nice company and a lot of help from our American friends Scott, Dick, Bruce, Frank and Tom whom we can not thank enough. I was naturally very pleased that everyone fished with my stripping basket the Linekurv.dk 🙂

We all hope to come back next year.

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