Fishing Frenzy

The Cape Cod Canal is among the most difficult and rewarding places down the entire East Coast of the America to catch striped bass. Few areas on earth offer the shore bound fisherman a better chance at catching a bass in the 40 pound range.

The man-made land cut has generated amazing fishing the past few seasons. The spring run of large striped bass has been just as impressive, if not more impressive than the famed fall migration.

If this coming spring is anything like the spring of 2011, large schools of trophy size stripers should enter the canal during the second half of May. For the serious striped bass angler, the "Big Ditch," as it's referred to by canal regulars, may very well produce many of the biggest stripers of the year.

Timing is Everything

The canal will support a population of stripers from May through October. But to really cash in on great canal fishing, an angler must be present at the canal when a large biomass of stripers moves through the land cut.

Regrettably it is inherently tough to calculate when this will occur. However it can help to stay up to date on Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay fishing reports. Reports of big schools of surface feeding striped bass in Buzzards Bay will usually trickle in a few days, to a week, before a canal blitz.

These stripers are on a northward migration trek that often times brings them directly into the Cape Cod Canal - as opposed to the longer trip around the arm of the Cape. During this time of the year the canal is stuffed with herring, mackerel, and whiting as well as a plethora of other prey items. The canal effortlessly sets the stage for a top notch fishing opportunity.

Top-notch fishing seems to occur in phases as biomasses of striped bass migrate through the land cut northward into Cape Cod Bay. Often time's spectacular fishing will occur for a day or two as the school migrates through. A phase of slower fishing develops, before the next large push of bass happens a week or so later.

I recall a Thursday morning last year when anyone who could cast a plug greater than 30 feet was into big fish. It did not take long for word to get out, and by the weekend the canal was chock full of anglers. However the school of striped bass had rapidly exited the canal late Thursday/early Friday. I did not see a single fish taken that Saturday morning.

The Top Water Bite

The top water bite at the canal can be downright nutty during the spring. To put it simply there are not many places in our neck of the woods where a shore bound angler can cast surface plugs to 30 pound bass.

With that said, not every angler will take advantage of the excellent top water action during spring at the canal. Very long casts in excess of 200 feet are usually needed to reach breaking bass.

Loading the tail end of an aerodynamic surface plug with weight can noticeably increase casting distance without harming the action of the plug. Using ultra thin braided line as well as the best rods and reels money can buy will surely help. However nothing can beat perfect casting technique.

Striped bass are relatively simple to fool with top water plugs when the bass are aggressive and focused in on larger prey items such as tinker mackerel. It can be a completely different predicament if the fish are focused on smaller prey such as juvenile whiting.

On several occasions last season, canal anglers witnessed schoolie bass feeding aggressively on small prey items at the crack of dawn. All efforts to hook these bass went unrewarded as it was nearly impossible to reach these breaking stripers with a plug that matched the small stature of the bait these schoolie stripers were feeding on.

However as the morning and tide progressed, the smaller prey items were replaced by mackerel. Larger bass replaced the little guys, and everyone began catching. Things change quickly this time of the season at the canal.