Macking at the Canal

Thirty inch striper caught on homemade and home painted popper

All week I had planned on fishing the Cape Cod Canal today (Friday). Having Friday and Saturday off this week meant there was no way I was dealing with the traffic and crowds on Saturday. Unfortunately, as it goes, I heard the "you should have been here yesterday story about how epic both Wednesday and Thursday were. Since I didn't have Thursday off this week, it was a little annoying to think about what I missed. I hoped there would still be fish there when I arrived this morning.

As always, I brought my bike. I parked at the Herring Run and made my way east. At 7:30 am, the parking lot was almost completely full. People were parking along the median. As I went down the trail, from the run to the Sagamore bridge, there was a guy every 50 yards or so. This wasn't shoulder to shoulder crowding, but it did mean I saw about a hundred or more guys fishing.

I started casting at random spots just past the bridge. I looked on the rocks and saw two Great Blue Heron and four cormorants fishing along with a bunch of gulls on the rocks. It looked promising. I saw some mackerel swim by. I tried a homemade popper that I had painted mackerel color ( all the rest I painted white). Within a couple minutes I caught a 30 inch keeper (that I let go). I fished the spot for another 20 minutes without a hit so I moved on.

During my bike ride I saw a few fish jump here and there. Mostly on the Sandwich side of the canal. There wasn't any blitzes and very little was showing on my side. About ten o'clock I tried a random spot toward the East End. I saw a school of mackerel swim by me just feet from shore multiple times. I tried the popper and the Daiwa SP Minnow in the mac color. I didn't get a look on the popper. However I got at least four follows by what looked to be big schoolies on the minnow. I couldn't get any fish to commit. While this was going on the mackerel kept appearing in front of me every 2-3 minutes.

After a half hour I put on a snag hook and waited...and waited...and waited. Okay, it was only about a five minute wait. But since I had the snag hook on my rod, it was five minutes that I couldn't fish. It took me a couple times of the school to come by before I snagged a mackerel. I brought it in (about ten feet) and hooked it through the lips with the snagger...And like that the mackerel was gone. Their lips are too paper thin to hook them that way.

The next mackerel I snagged was right at the back of the tail. It was so close to the tail, the hook basically cut the tail off. This obviously made it difficult to swim and it really just fluttered in the current. I used him for a few minutes but didn't get a hit.

The next mackerel that I snagged was perfect. It got hooked just behind the head. I didn't even take it off and put the hook where I wanted it. On my second cast I got a follow as I was reeling it in. I saw the fish and stopped reeling. The mac started to slowly sink. The bass turned back around and hit. Game on!

It took ten minutes to land the fish and it peeled 80 yards of line. I knew it was a pretty good fish since I had seen it. When I finally got it in, it measured 39 inches. I took some pictures and attempted to let it go. I spent fifteen minutes trying to revive it but didn't have any luck. Everytime I thought it was regaining strength it would start to go belly up on me. I had no choice but to keep it. I don't have any problem eating a striper, it was the killing it I didn't want to do.

Since I had no plans on keeping any fish no matter how big, I was not prepared. Luckily my friend Dave was driving down. I had to carry the 20+ pound fish for a mile and a half on my bike, but at least I didn't have to go back to my car. I cut a fin off because that is what you are supposed to do in MA if you choose to keep a striper, and stashed it in Dave's truck. Luckily, it stayed cool and cloudy all day. If the sun would have came out, I'd would've left much sooner so the meat wouldn't spoil.

I fished with Dave for a couple more hours trying various spots. I didn't get anymore fish but Dave got one. We saw three or four schoolies and a 32 inch fish caught.

Same fish, but near parking lot