July 26, 2019
Dear Fishermen and Friends,
Finally, the heat has broken! As much as we might have complained about it, we are blessed to live on an island where our water temps keep our air temperatures much cooler than the mainland. If you were on the water during this heat wave, chances are you weren’t effected at all. All of the heat upped our water temps and the harbor is now reading at a balmy 75 degrees and the south shore is in the high 60’s. The warmer water has jump started some of our inshore bait and now we have a good flow of Bluefish.
Our inshore bait in July are primarily sand eels. Bluefish love corralling this smaller bait and pushing it to the surface. If you watch the water long enough where we have a lot of bait there will often be feeding frenzies.
For our recreational fisherman, we have great news, the Trustees of the Reservation have opened Great Point. For most of the summer, the Point has been closed due to Piping Plovers. Once these shore birds are mature enough to fly on their own, they open the point back up. Great Point is one of the many special resources we have on Nantucket and if you haven’t spent time out there I highly suggest it. There are often comments about the price tag of the stickers, but for $160 (less than the cost of a lot of lunches on island) you get to explore this spit of land that offers more than 16 miles of trails.
The best part is that fishing off the Point has been pretty good this week. We’ve had a lot of reports of Bluefish caught regularly on the east and west sides of Great Point. The East side (or the outside) has also produced a fair number of bass as well, so be prepared.
From the beach, we are also seeing Bluefish caught regularly off of the south shore and Dionis. The most consistent action has been for those individuals who park in Madaket and walk towards Smiths Point. These fish are actively feeding off sand eels but can be targeted with most top water or swimming plugs.
Our Striped Bass fishery is still very consistent. Despite increasing water temps, we are seeing some good action. The best action from the shore has been right in the wash on the South Shore. Specifically Cisco towards Madaket has produced some great fish. We also have a good population of fish in Madaquecham. Look for narrow stretches of beach, which often represent a deeper hole and on the edge of that hole where there is some breaking water. These fish are sitting in the deeper water and ambushing bait as it comes through the turbulent water. A lot of anglers have also been using their fly rods from the surf and are having a lot of action. My suggestion is while there is still light to use smaller plugs and then at night use something that will move some more water such as a larger swimming plug.
From the boat, the eastern rips are continuing to produce good Bass and we still have plenty of Squid pushing through. Remember, find the bait and you’ll find the fish. Often we’ll mark a lot of fish and can’t get them to bite. As soon as the bait comes through, these fish get super happy and will become incredibly active. The fish in the rips tend to be a little bigger than we are finding inshore based on bigger bait and cooler water temps, but remember that you cannot keep anything outside of three miles. Additionally, any Striped Bass that is caught outside of three miles must be released.
While our Bonito fishery technically started in early June, this is the time of year where it starts to get going. It’s definitely not hot and heavy but we are hearing of Bonito caught on a daily basis. The Bonito Bar is setting up perfectly with bait but we actually have only caught a few of these fish there. We’ve heard of several Bonito caught off Great Point on boats and have heard of one off the north shore. The majority of fish have been caught south of Tuckernuck and Muskeget however. It’s still not worth targeting these fish quite yet, but any day now it should start as our waters temps are hitting the right levels.
We’re lucky to have such an incredible fishery at our finger tips. Go explore and enjoy it, you never know what you might find.