Southern New England Outdoor and Nature Site: Buzzards Bay

My friend Eric Meyer invites me out on his boat multiple times a year. I very much appriciate the offer to go on a good friend's boat, but usually I have plans and decline the offer. Sometimes I have plans weeks in advance (such as a Newburyport overnight camping trip) Other times, Laurie and I made plans to go to New Hampshire. On the other hand, you really can't plan a boat trip until you know the weather, which really only gives about 48 hours notice. By then, I've had my next day's off planned for a week. Eric and I have talked about this, but make no mistake, I am very grateful you keep inviting me, (see what I did there, when you read this Eric, you will know I am talking to you)

However, we do make plans to go the end of May or early June. This is a perfect time for me. It is after my bird migration trips (that were rained out this year!!!!) and before my trips to New Hampshire. We planned this trip weeks ago (weather dependent of course) and I did not try to schedule anything else. So yesterday, we set out on a picture perfect day on Buzzards Bay.

We fished the entire day from 7 am until 5 pm. I loved the fact we did not have to rush. The tide was low about 2 pm, and Eric's boat is a deep hull. Because of this we had to wait until the tide rose again at the dock. This was absolutely perfect. We had the whole day to fish.

We tried multiple spots through the bay. We found fish everywhere. We didn't find the huge school of sea bass, so the fishing wasn't hot and heavy. We found fish scattered throughout. Sometimes we would go ten minutes without a hit then we would both hook up, then go another couple minutes without a fish. As I said multiple times, it was fishing and not just catching.

I'd estimate we caught about 45 fish a piece. Here is the amazing part, just about every fish was above keeper size. The size limit in Massachusetts is 15 inches. I doubt we caught five fish under that size!. Usually with sea bass half the fish are under that size and half over. Most of those fish from 13-16 inches with a few big ones and a few in the 9-12 inch range. Not today, I'd say average size was close to 17 inches! Eric got the biggest one at about 21 inches and I landed two, just around 20.

Eric and I have different fishing philosophies. He likes to tip his jigs with bait, while I would rather not. So it is interesting to see how the fish react to the two different styles. Because we tried to trick the fish in different ways, fishing was an experiment.

Early in the day the tide was barely moving. I could use my light 1/2 ounce and 3/4 ounce bucktail jigs. I don't know if it mattered, but the fish were nailing them. Even with Eric's squid, I was far and away catching more fish, This surprised me, because his jigs had smell while mine didn't. He was still catching some fish, but the smaller jigs were catching way more fish.

As the day went on the wind picked up. The current was stronger and my half ounce jigs were useless, and my 3/4 ounce jig was barely effective. Eric had some big jigheads and I used one with a curly tail grub or a Zoom fluke. The tide turned (pun) and the roles were reversed. Although I was still catching a few fish, Eric was reeling them up one after another. His double jig rig was really staying down near the bottom and proved to be very effective. Earlier, if we went over a few fish, it seemed like I was hooking up before we drifted past the school. In the afternoon, it was the exact opposite. Eric would get the hit, while I waited for the next big pod.

I don't know if the stronger current spread the scent of squid more and that is why the fish hit his. Maybe since I couldn't use my bucktails the fish were not as interested in the single curly tail. I don't really know. It didn't matter in the end, although we didn't keep count, I think we caught damn near the same number of fish. As Eric said, fishing can be streaky. Maybe the size jig didn't matter, maybe the squid didn't matter. Maybe the fishing gods just balanced everything out? We were both catching enough fish during our "slow time" that it didn't really matter anyway.

I was also experimenting with color. While the water was still slow, I was trying multi colored bucktails that I made up. I tried a bucktail with pink/orange/ lime green. I caught a lot of fish on it, but I do think the white bucktail worked slightly better when the fish were spread out and less aggressive.

We ended up catching five species. Besides the large seabass, I got a large scup. We caught a few sea robins, and some small fluke. The biggest surprise was a good size blue that I caught fishing the bottom with the jig. I knew I had a big fish, but I was surprised when I saw a bluefish come out of the water. I'd estimate, it went around eight pounds.

So, all in all, it was a great day. We have had days where we caught twice as many sea bass in half the time on the water. However, I will take quality over quantity any day. When half of the sea bass are around 17 inches, that makes for a really fun day.