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Fishing the Cape Cod Canal
The Cape Cod Canal is amongst the most challenging and rewarding locations along the entire East Coast of America to catch striped bass. Few places on earth provide the shore bound angler a better chance at connecting with 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 next spring is anything similar to the spring of 2011, enormous schools of trophy size striped bass should enter the canal during the second half of May. For the serious striped bass angler, the “Big Ditch,” as it’s referenced by canal regulars, could very well produce several of the biggest striped bass of the year.
Timing is Everything
The canal will support a population of stripers from May through October. But to truly cash in on great canal fishing, an angler ought to be at the canal when a large biomass of bass moves into the land cut.
Unfortunately it is inherently complicated to calculate when this will occur. However it will help to stay updated on Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay fishing reports. Stories of huge 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 pattern that often brings them directly through the Cape Cod Canal – in contrast to the longer path around the arm of Cape Cod. At this time of the year the canal is full of herring, mackerel, and whiting as well as a plethora of other prey items. The canal effortlessly sets the stage for a world class 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 remember a Thursday morning last season when anyone who could cast a plug more than 30 feet was into big bass. It did not take long for word to get out, and by the weekend the canal was stuffed with anglers. However the biomass of stripers had quickly exited the canal late Thursday/early Friday. I did not see a single striper taken that Saturday morning.
Top Water Bass Action
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 much larger mackerel. Larger bass replaced the schoolies, and everyone began hooking up. Things change rapidly this time of the year at the canal.
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