Striped Bass Fishing Forums Forum banner

Fishing the Cape: Falmouth to Provincetown

255 views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  AdminVS 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
by Jerry Vovcsko

It can be daunting to arrive at Cape Cod wondering where to find a good place to fish. Heck, never mind a "good" place to fish, just finding an accessible spot can be a challenge. So with that in mind I thought I'd offer a few suggestions about wetting a line in Cape waters with the possibility of maybe even hooking up with a keeper bass, a feisty blue or some of the other available species such as tautog, black sea bass, scup and, later in the season, bonito and false albacore.

Now for a good part of the year many of the best fishing spots are virtually inaccessible because there's nowhere to park nearby. Consider that hundreds of thousands of cars swarm across the Bourne and Sagamore bridges every weekend during the summer. Combine that with "No Parking" and "Tow Zone" signs that dot the landscape and it becomes a challenge to find any parking spot, let alone one near where the fishing might be good. Off-season, the options are improved and it's with that in mind that I'm going to mention some of the places that are long time favorites of mine.

Directions can be tricky so the first thing I suggest is you pick up a thin volume entitled "Fishing New England: A Cape Cod Shore Guide". It's published by the folks at "On the Water" magazine and you can order a copy from them. It offers good maps that will help you locate some of the places I'm talking about. Or at least pick up a map of Cape Cod that shows hihways and bodies of water...local gas stations will have those or you can order one from AAA or the Cape Chamber of Commerce.

Coming down over the Bourne Bridge at the rotary, locally known as a "flyover", route twenty eight peels off to the right and you'll want to follow that toward Falmouth.
Car Automotive parking light Vehicle Land vehicle Sky
Just before the traffic light at Jones Road there's a right hand turn that takes you over to the beach at Sippewissett. (Have a look at the map in your copy of the "Cape Cod Shore Guide" for more explicit directions) and it will bring you to a small parking lot. On your right is Sippewissett Creek and if you get here around dusk and wade out from the mouth on a falling tide, you'll be at a spot that sees some fine striper fishing all season long. It's also a good place to break out the fly rod as there's plenty of room to back cast. Don't bother to show up here between nine am and five pm during the season, however, as it's Resident Parking Only and you'll need a resident beach sticker on your car or the gate attendant will send you on your way.

Back on route twenty eight again and heading past the turnoff for downtown Falmouth, continue on the Woods Hole Road until you come to a traffic light. Turn right and follow to the tiny parking lot (a half-dozen spaces) at Quissett Harbor. Follow the signs to the path through those woods ahead and you'll come out in view of The Knob.
Water Cloud Sky Nature Natural landscape
The rocky area all around the base of this hill-on-a-peninsula offers fine fishing for stripers, blues and the occasional tautog. It also features a splendid panoramic view of Buzzards Bay ; on a clear day you can see all the way up to the west entrance of the Cape Cod Canal and southwest as far as Fairhaven and beyond toward New Bedford and Fall River. While you're right there, it's worth testing the inside waters of the harbor with a cast or two, especially on an ebbing tide. Jig and plastic combos as well as rubber eels are very effective here as live eels populate many of the feeder streams and striped bass are used to clobbering them.

Continuing along to Woods Hole, the parking is metered but if you get lucky and find a vacant parking space anywhere along Water Street you can pump in a quarter or two and try a few casts from the jetty behind the NOAA building near that little waterfront park. Woods Hole Harbor has been known to serve up just about everything that swims at one time or another. I have personally seen striped bass, bluefish, flounder, false albacore, bonito, tautog, mackerel and conger eels pulled from the Harbor. There have been reports of tropical species including mahi mahi, lionfish and various southern jacks caught there as well thanks to the nearness of the Gulf Stream which occasionally spins off random eddies of warm water conveying tropical species into local waters.

Take the Woods Hole Road out of town to Nobska Road, turn off there and fish your way back to Falmouth's Surf Drive stopping to cast from the small jetties jutting into Vineyard Sound all the way around past Falmouth Harbor. Try the jetty at the Maravista Bridge and continue to the bridge at Green Pond. Next comes Menahaunt Beach with a fine jetty at the mouth of the Eel Pond estuary. Definitely worth a few casts at dusk or in the predawn hours. Wait until after five PM though, as it costs ten bucks to park before then and the beaches are clogged with bathers and sun worshippers for most of the afternoon.

As the late Phil Schwind, author and charter boat skipper liked to put it: "There's an awful lot of flesh showing on the beaches…and a lot of it's awful."

In this area between Surf Drive and all the way over to Waquoit there are a number of estuaries, including, Great Pond, Eel Pond, Green Pond and Waquoit Bay, all easy to find on a local map and all emptying into Nantucket Sound. Fish those jetties at dusk and dawn with metal slabs, swimming plugs, or jig and plastic lures for good striper and bluefish action. There's a small parking lot up at the western end of Great Pond and you can leave your car there and if you're reasonably fit, walk to three or four of those estuaries to try a few casts.
Water Natural landscape Land lot Urban design Landscape


By the way, if you have young kids along, keep in mind that those jetties provide small tautog (cunners), scup and sea robins to keep the young folk busy and interested. Indolent ne'er-do-wells such as myself will occasionally plant a beach chair near the water's edge, drive in a sandspike or two and admire the view of Martha's Vineyard across Nantucket Sound while sipping from a thermos of coffee (or perhaps a cold beverage) as the broadcast of a Red Sox game provides summery background noises from Fenway Park.

Now this barely gets us started doing a little fishing on the Cape but there's no hurry and there are lots of places between Falmouth and Provincetown to dip a line into waters both salt and fresh. We'll get to them over the next few weeks and by the time the stripers show up perhaps you'll have a better idea of where you want to try your luck here on old Cape Cod. Anyhow, keep an eye on this blog over the next few weeks and we'll try to find a few spots to do a little fishing from shore and have a decent chance of hooking up with something that'll give you a little tussle and maybe provide something tasty for the grill .
 
See less See more
3
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top