Commercial Striped Bass Fishing!

Up at 3:30 am this morning. Headed out to do some commercial striped bass fishing on the Atlantic side of the Cape. Here is an early morning shot of the old school harbor:


You know Cape Cod is pretty much one of the coolest places on earth for a fish geek like myself. The only problem with the Cape is that Boston is only one hour away and pretty much every major city on the East Coast is nearby. Big cities bring lots of people and I pretty much don't like people in general.

We motored out to a remote beach and spotted a bunch of birds dive bombing baitfish. Instantly hooked up the moment our big diamond jigs hit the water! Crazy. Insane. Unbelievably Awesome. My first striper was a 10 lber, but it was too short to keep. They have to be 34 inches long to be legal fish and we caught tons of 32" 10 lbers. Here are some pictures of short fish that had to be released:

We also caught a handful of bluefish today as well:


So altogether we caught and released about 45 short fish in the 8-10 lb range. Along with the short fish though, we caught our limit of legal fish! Legal fish are in the 13-30 lb range and our limit was 30 of those monster fish. Our biggest fish today was 27 lbs and our average keeper was 17 lbs. Here are a bunch of pictures, fishing was just blow your mind incredible today.

Justin caught the biggest fish of the day:


We were fishing very close to the beach. Here is a photo of just how close:


Here is a shot of the view looking out. When the schools of stripers are located, every boat within miles come running in to get a piece of the action. Lots and lots of boats. Our remote beach turned into a zoo by the time we left.


We were one of the first boats to limit out today! We filled the cooler up completely by 1 pm with 509 lbs of stripers and 47 lbs of bluefish!


Basically you cast out a big jig/spoon bait and real it in as fast as you possibly can. The big stripers come out of nowhere and smash your bait so hard it about rips the pole out of your hands. The coolest thing is that you literally watch each fish slam the bait! My arms are completely and utterly jello right now. Just picking up each bite of food to put in my mouth is not easy with such sore arms, but I am managing.

As a matter of fact I am eating seared scallops on top of seared pear slices marinated in some special Cape Cod lemon marinade. Eating while I type. Take a look at this appetizer:


Also we are having more lobsters, fresh striped bass, and fresh bluefish. We brought some fresh striped bass to the neighbor lobster lady and she dug us out 3 nice big lobsters in exchange to compliment our dinner. Seriously, this is as good as it gets. Pretty much the best food on the planet and Brett is a gourmet chef.


So before I forget, we were fishing with Steve today. Steve is a 5th grade school teacher here on the cape and he commercial fishes in the summer. He was focussed and determined all day, no messing around. Finally once we just about had the fish box full of fish I got him to pose for a quick photo.


Steve and I make a great team. He needs help catching 30 stripers everyday, and Justin and I love fishing in the Ocean for free. Tomorrow we will be to Steves at 4:30 am ready to roll!!! My arms hurt, my stomach hurts, and I am tired. Too much fishing and eating. One thing is for certain, this boy is Fat and Happy! Sleeping will be nice, tomorrow will be here soon.