Fall is looming, as the days get shorter and the air and water temperatures drop a little more each week. September can be a tremendous month for fishing here. It’s a time when migratory fish are on the move, and that requires energy, which means they’re feeding more aggressively.
We have had a great bluefish run this season, reminiscent of how the bluefish runs used to be around here, but this past week the fish did not settle into one place for more than a day. The most consistent fishing has been off the backside beaches around Peaked Hill Bar and Head of the Meadow. The bay has been wildly inconsistent, with big schools of bluefish found off the Pamet one day then the Brewster Flats the next.
Tuna fishing also heats up in the fall, and giant bluefin were brought in from Stellwagen Bank all week. The market is still very soft for these fish, which mostly get shipped to Japan, and some buyers are even telling fishermen they aren’t taking fish at all until the demand starts to outpace the supply. Fishing for smaller, recreational-size bluefin has been excellent 12 to 15 miles east of the Outer Cape along the 100-fathom line.
I’m still waiting to hear about the first mahi catch to come in from out there, as our warming oceans continue to push these and other creatures further and further north. Flounder fishing remains very slow in the usual spots from the Pamet down to the bell buoy outside Sesuit Harbor. The black sea bass caught with the flounders have been mostly undersized throwbacks.
Whales have pushed back into the south end of Stellwagen Bank, but we’re not seeing them in the bay or along the backside beaches.
Mola mola (or ocean sunfish) are everywhere at the moment, concurrent with the major influx of jellyfish we recently experienced. Fish follow their food. Look for their floppy dorsal fins on the surface to observe one of the most bizarre-looking fish you will ever see.
Some colorful characters work in and around the water here; that is beyond doubt. We lost one of them unexpectedly this past week: Stephen Ryan was one of the more interesting fellows to grace our wharf. A commercial fisherman who worked on Capt. Tommy Smith’s strike-net boat, the Sea Wolf, Stephen was also an avid photographer, a jewelry artist who just began selling out of one of the shacks on MacMillan Wharf, and a genuinely warm, friendly man who had a long history in this town and the Outer Cape.
With Joe “Bones” Basine and now Stephen gone, the waterfront has lost a little bit of its color. Stephen will be very much missed around here.
If you were at Bubala’s last week and saw a big table of laughing, boisterous men, that was our annual captains dinner, where many of us charter boat and commercial fishing boat captains get together to take a break from work and enjoy each other’s company. It’s heartwarming how well we all get along, despite being business competitors. What’s more important is how we understand that helping each other helps us all in the bigger picture. Maybe not everyone who works offshore gets that, and that’s their loss.
I just finished my 50th year working offshore, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t do it alone, no matter how good you think you are. No man is an island.
