I've arrived in Martha's Vineyard near Cape Cod to meet up with Brian McCarty of Major League Surf Casting. For two days, we will be Striper fishing looking to put a giant in the boat!
Taking the Tour Jeep on Water!
We had a travel day before starting off at Martha's Vineyard. During our trip, we took the ferry in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It was an awesome feeling to drive right up on the ferry, something I've never done before and we crossed right at sunset so we had an awesome view for our ride!
Headed Out Striper Fishing Cape Cod!
It was two deep bodies of water with a sandbar in between them. The tide made it so one side of the sandbar was flat calm but the other side had a crazy chop!
You could see the fish busting bait in "The Rip" and it was pretty wild to know that there were some big fish sitting right in front of the boat. We casted for a little while, but after an hour without any fish, we decided to head over to Cuttyhunk to explore. I even signed my name with the ANGLR Tour next to it in the Cuttyhunk log book!
Cuttyhunk was absolutely beautiful! We even sat where Presidents have sat long before us. We didn't spend too long being tourists because we saw busting fish right outside of the bay and we hopped in the boat to get in on the action!
Striper Fishing Action Takes Off!
After two casts, Stavros set the hook into our first fish of the day! It was an epic hook-set and the Striper fought the whole way to the boat! It absolutely crushed his topwater bait!
After that catch, we decided to follow the birds which led us to the baitfish, which led us to the big Stripers! After catching a few smaller fish, I had an unlucky encounter! I was holding the line attached to a fish that had two treble hooks in his mouth… the fish squirmed and sure enough I got a hook in my hand.
I knew this was going to happen at some point, but it's never fun when it does.
I had to push it the rest the way through and then let Corri pinch the barb down and push it out.
After that fiasco, we went back to our original spot, "The Rip," and began absolutely tearing them up!
Cape Cod Striper Fishing With Topwater!
I cast my popper out, and two pops into my retrieve a Striper exploded out of the water! I set the hook and the rod doubled over. After five minutes, it came up along the side of the boat and Brian got it on the net!
After that, it was game on and I was able to stick into a few really nice fish. They were blowing up right on "The Rip" in plain sight. Alex and Stavros even hooked a double which was epic because of how big the Stripers were!
After the epic double and a few more catches, we decided to call it and go grab some food.
We returned to the dock and took off for some warm food.
We aren't done yet though!
Once we finished eating, we went back down to the harbor and geared up for some night fishing!
We began rigging up and Brian handed us massive live eels to put on our circle hooks. We were going to be free lining them as they swam in the current. These eels were huge.. But they worked like a charm!
On my second drift, I felt a really aggressive tug on the end of my line… I reared back and ended up hooking into my biggest Striper of the trip! A 16 pound Striped Bass!
After pulling it in, we grabbed some quick pictures and then released it. It was an amazing feeling watching it swim off. Then, we went right back to work!
Alex and I caught a few more beautiful Stripers in that spot! We even made a nice campfire on the beach.
After fishing for so long, we finally decided to head back home after fishing for a full 24 hours without any sleep.
We woke up a few hours later, everybody was pretty tired, but when the fish are biting there's nothing you can do to stop yourself from chasing them! We loaded up and before long I was standing in a beautiful Brook Trout stream.
It wasn't too long before I hooked up. It was incredible to catch these beautiful little delicate fish on the same island where there's so many aggressive Striped Bass right down stream.
After taking that nice relaxing break in the stream, we sat down for a good breakfast and did some more touristy things. We jumped off a bridge… I was told it is a tradition to jump off of them.
One last Striper Fishing Trip!
After we got our fill of being tourists, we met Stavros back at "Fillet-O-Fish and took it out for one more fishing session. This was just an enjoyable time and we all got to go out and wax some fish. We didn't hook into any giants, but it was still an awesome evening trip!
Once we got back to Brian's house, we slept for another few hours before waking up panicked… thinking we were going to miss the ferry. We scrambled and got our gear together, thanked Brian and then headed off.
We pulled up to the ferry in the nick of time! It was one of the craziest three days stretches of fishing and traveling of my life! And we're not done yet… we are headed off to fish Canadice Lake near Rochester, New York out of the kayaks with John Franchot from Bass Resource!