. . . means spending time reading and researching so that when you arrive all that is left is following your plan and making the casts. Finding concentrations of stripers, blues or tunas accessible from the shore (for most of us) or from your boat but in unfamiliar waters . . . can be easy or daunting. The fish are here but they can't be found if you aren't willing to take a risk. That means committing to a technique and a place and giving it a good try. Then moving on. First, read this site. There are over 130 pages in this site and most are dedicated to fishing the Cape. (See below for some immediate choices.) Then, read the fishing reports. There are a number of them available on the net now for New England.
Take out your atlas and find the places they are talking about in the reports and in the articles you read in On The Water and other local sources of good fishing information. Find the places on the map and take notes about when and how and with what someone caught fish. (You can try sending me an email explaining what you want to do; I generally get back to folks within a day or two, unless I'm swamped with charters.Email) Put together a plan including all of the places you want to fish that are close to where you are going to stay or that offer just what you are looking for in terms of wading, species and privacy. Prioritize your list and prepare your tackle. When you arrive, hit all the local tackle shops in the off hours of the afternoon before you go fishing and then be on the water at dawn and dusk. Fish one place after another for most of your visit but save your last days for the best you found and get to know those places better.
If you only have one day or two days to catch and you don't know where to go, by all means hire a guide. Even if for only a couple of hours to get you started, a guide can save your whole day and possibly the entire fishing part of your vacation. No matter what I can tell you here, you can't possibly expect to be successful given only a couple of chances on your own. But a guide is in the position of sharing years of local experience with you in minutes. That's tough to beat. On the other hand, if you can enjoy the fishin', without catchin', and consider taking a fish a bonus over time well spent with rod in hand then you should try it on your own. Fish or no fish, the Cape is a beautiful place to be at dawn. The east facing shorelines of the cape will amply reward you for your early rising and given the healthy striper populations, you'll probably "get lucky".
Email Capt. Michael Eichenseer, webmaster.