We finally got a week with consistent weather, and that resulted in some pretty good striped bass fishing — depending on what time of day you were out. Fishing was excellent every morning but not so great in the afternoons.
The hot spot continues to be from Wood End Light all the way around to the Race Point Ranger Station. And the nice thing about the catches this last week was that the vast majority of fish were in the keeper slot size of 28 to 31 inches. Also, mackerel have been nearby for most of the week, so fresh bait has not been an issue at all.
Bluefish are still mysteriously absent, and we are at the point where I am going to go out on a limb and say this will be a year without bluefish. The latest they’ve ever arrived here, according to my records, is Aug. 3. Now, if they do show up, it will be too late for many of our visitors to go out on a boat and catch one, since school starts for some in just another week or two.
Not that we haven’t caught any. We are catching an occasional bluefish, but the big charge we are used to seeing just isn’t here.
Why these toothy hard-fighting critters slipped our area this year is anyone’s guess. We had good water temperatures most of the summer — outside of a couple of cold spells. We seemed to have plenty of food in the water for them: sand eels, mackerel, and now pogies. Perhaps this dearth is the result of a few bad reproductive years. Here’s the bottom line: with as much as we know about the ocean and its inhabitants, there is even more that we don’t know.
Commercial striped bass fishing closed last week for the year, and now, in a surprise announcement, we hear bluefin tuna has been shut down for all size categories to all but commercial fishermen with the proper licensing. This will be quite a blow to charter boats in New England who make a decent living taking people out in the fall for the chance to catch and land a schoolie-size bluefin. Catch and release is still allowed, but it’s just not the same.
Here is what perplexes me: both striped bass and tuna were closed early. The striped bass commercial season did not last even eight weeks before the quota was reached. If both of these species are perilously low in numbers and need strict protections, then how did we fill the quotas so rapidly? I cannot make that square peg fit into a round hole. This is why following National Marine Fisheries policies is so frustrating.
An orca was spotted swimming with dolphins off Stellwagen Bank on Sunday. I’ll report more on that next week. Closer to home, we have been watching a couple of Atlantic white sharks kicking around Race Point for a week now; they chopped a few hooked striped bass in two. This is going on very, very close to where people are swimming. It’s nice to see people enjoying the beauty of Race Point, but if you’re one of them, don’t go in the water past your knees.
The latest Global Forecast System model — this is one of two benchmark weather forecasting models — is indicating there’s the potential for a major hurricane to form off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We’re paying attention because a storm like that could bring catastrophic damage to some East Coast communities. The timeline is 12 days out from Aug. 10.
Models can get things wrong, and there’s time for patterns to shift, so it’s wait and see for now. It’s been a while since we’ve seen one of these storms up here, and as some might put it, we’re overdue for one.
