Fly fishing striped bass on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Including: the Cape Cod Canal, Nantucket Sound, Cape Cod Bay, and the Atlantic; from Falmouth to Chatham to Provincetown, Bays . . . . . . . . .
Flyfishing for striped bass.
As a rule, good early fishing can be found at the mouths of rivers
and at the top of bays and coves in warmer water areas. These places are
either high traffic areas or offer the greatest availability of forage
in the form of overwintering spotted killifish, silversides and migratory
alewives. Jetties, protruding out into the Sound are always a good bet
too, the one nearest a river or cove mouth often produces the best. The
canal is also a reliable fishery throughout the season but some tides are
definitely better producers than others; ask
locally for timely information.
From June on stripers separate into different niches in the ecosystem.
Some schoolies and keepers remain inside bays and rivers if there is a
consistent food supply. Food becomes the all important factor here. Keepers
will spend the days in the bottom of channels and the nights roaming the
edges and flats. Smaller fish will be more active in the daytime along
grass and bank edges. But if there aren't silversides, sand eels or chubs
to hold them then most of these fish leave the embayments to roam the bigger
waters of Nantucket Sound, Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic from Chatham to
P'town in search of forage. 
How would you know if the fish are in and where to try?
Check the fishing reports.
You should also ask the locals; tackle shops
or marinas. Next, try your luck in a likely
spot and especially if it's a windless night, be sure to go to the shore
and listen. Bass make a distinctive popping sound when they are surface
feeding. It can be a dead giveaway to excellent fishing. (The
best "search flies" for the Cape are probably a chartreuse
clouser or a green and white deceiver. Its hard to go wrong with these.
Add a popper, white and black bunnys and a sand eel fly and you have 95%
of your fishing covered.)
Tackle is what you would expect; 8/9 weight rod (unless you are driving
casts into an onshore breeze), and intermediate sinking line and six to
nine feet of leader. Stripers aren't leader shy fish but they are cautious
in the light and so during the day, unless there is a surface feeding frenzy
on, fishing deep and slow using one foot strips is generally best.
If they are not in the bays and rivers come summer, then they may
still be at the river mouths and bay entrances. If so, be prepared for
very large bass mixed in with the one and two year olds. This mix can be
frustrating or exciting but it is rarely boring. Remember, stripers feed
much more actively at night. If you can't find 'em during the day be sure
to be wetting your line at night!
If they can't be found in protected waters or at the entrances to bays
and coves then there is nothing for it but to launch your boat or hire a charter guide to find the fish offshore. This
means fishing the rips, holes, rock piles and barnacle beds for resident
and mobile schools of bass. These schools may hold predominantly 16"
fish or all 34" fish, you never know. Similar year sizes tend to feed
together to match their swimming speed but passing schools of fish can
vary appreciably. 
There are locales that hold fish consistently offshore:
the Elizabeth Islands, Monomoy point and the flats (as seen on the right)
and Stellwagon to name a few. Do it yourselfers can find these places on
the charts but it is often wise to charter
instead; at least until you've had a look at the water and what's required
to fish it. This is a safety issue as well as one of an economy of labor.
There are excellent striper holding areas around the Cape that are also
rife with hidden rocks, big rips and ebb tides that can strand you. (I'm
thinking of the Elizabeth's, Bishops and Clerks, Monomoy Island, Cape Cod
Bay and such.) A guide can show you around quicker while finding you the
fish and let you in on the cautions as well.
Last year, 1998, was a very good year for bass fishing. Huge numbers of schoolies came in during April and May (and again in October). Keepers were somewhat more elusive than usual in shallow water but were in healthy numbers just offshore all summer. The bait ran out in the shallows too and the fishing during the summer inshore was hit and miss. Best bet last year was to charter onto the Atlantic off Chatham or to the islands.
Who knows what 1999 will bring but it should be full of a lot more small fish (16" - 24") in the spring and (if the forage holds) a spectacular year for all sizes of bass from shore and boat.
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