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fin whales

    THE SCUTTLEBUTT

    Of Live Orcas and Dead Oysters

    By the way, striped bass fishing is ridiculously good right now

    By

    An orca was spotted a few miles off Provincetown this week, followed by another sighting on Stellwagen Bank. It has been a while since orcas have been observed here. They spend a lot of time underwater and far from shore, so they aren’t easy to watch. Whether they will stay around remains to be seen. That depends on the food sources available, but if those small bluefin tuna show up again this year like they did at the end of June last summer that could be enough to keep them around.

    Orcas are the largest members of the dolphin family; they’re highly social and move in pods. They’re also apex predators — meaning they’re at the top of the food chain. They hunt strategically, in packs, and they are the only known predators of great white sharks.

    Two fin whales cruising along by the Cee-Jay. (Photo by Mike Rathgeber)

    The fin whales have finally moved into the area between Race Point and Herring Cove. We saw two of them while fishing the other day. There are so many mackerel, herring, and sand eels for them to eat right now I see no reason why they wouldn’t stick around. One of the fin whales was the biggest I have seen in quite some time. If you’re at Herring Cove Beach or Race Point, keep an eye offshore for their telltale tall spouts. Fin whales do not lift their tails to dive the way humpbacks do; they simply arch their backs and down they go.

    Local oysterman Alex Brown told me that he’s lost a serious proportion of his crop this year. He started noticing a number of dead market-size oysters in his growing bags back in April, and now as he works his grant, culling the oysters for size, he’s discovering the losses are extensive. He called the county, which took samples back to its lab to see if they can determine what is going on. Brown and shellfish constable Steven Wisbauer both say they suspect the late winter deep freeze is the culprit — gardeners know the freeze they’re talking about.

    The extreme cold came on the heels of mild winter weather, and Brown thinks the oysters may have come out of dormancy and were pumping along in the springlike weather when the freeze hit, dropping temperatures below zero for a couple of miserable days. Brown said he measured 9 below zero out there.

    I am eager to see what the county comes back with. I’m no marine biologist and certainly do not claim to be an expert on this subject, but I worry that the hundreds of seals camped out over there are going to be the oysters’ downfall eventually. But that’s another story.

    The bulk of mackerel have thinned out in the harbor and moved up towards Stellwagen Bank, so getting bait is more challenging than it has been. There are still some in the West End of the harbor, but pickings are slim, and it takes a while to get enough to have on hand as striper bait. Other than that, here’s the news you really wanted to hear: the striped bass fishing is ridiculously good right now between Wood End and Race Point.

    THE SCUTTLEBUTT

    Fish Flee the Cool Front

    After a thunderstorm, runoff heads for the harbor

    By

    Fishing had a major reversal this week, as a fall-like weather pattern with stiff north and northeast winds and cooler temperatures took hold. This followed the mother of all thunderstorms, which preceded the front with much-needed (but still not enough) rain, a few lightning strikes, and deafening thunder along the waterfront.

    Water temperatures have been steadily going down with each day of these north winds: as of Sunday, the harbor had gone from 76 to 62 degrees and the ocean backside from 72 to 52 degrees, while the bay hovered around 60 degrees. Consequently, the bluefish and striped bass made beelines out of here.

    The charter boats and CeeJay party boat were able to find a few bluefish way down in the bay on the north side of Billingsgate Shoals, where the water temperatures were a little higher, but it was a long ride for very few fish. There are also a few bluefish sporadically showing up down the backside by Head of the Meadow. But the bay is a dead zone at the moment. Striped bass have all but disappeared from our local spots since the front came through.

    So, where do we go from here? Typically, when the winds go back to our normal summer patterns from south to southwest, the ocean warms back up, and, in theory, the fish should trickle back in. We’ll have to wait and see. The baitfish that the big fish were feeding on haven’t left, so that’s an encouraging sign.

    A storm drain sending rainwater runoff from the streets and sidewalks into Provincetown Harbor. This drain runs for hours after a hard rain. (Photo by Mike Rathgeber)

    The changing weather has not altered the fin whales’ behavior. They’re still hanging around Race Point, visible from the beach. The outer beaches around Race Point are finally open to over-sand vehicles, and the entire area was packed with them last Sunday. Nice to see people able to enjoy the beach this way. Better late than never, I suppose.

    Rant warning.

    I was sitting on the CeeJay as that violent line of thunderstorms came through. Watching the storm drain pouring thousands of gallons of rainwater from the streets into the harbor, I kept wondering why we can’t come up with a better idea for stormwater that literally washes the streets of dirt, gasoline, oil, pet excrement, and whatever else happens to be out there when a storm hits.

    How can that possibly be good for the harbor? Why can’t we redirect all that tainted fresh water into a place that can treat it and reuse it somehow? The obvious answer is “there’s no money for that,” but our harbor is a delicate ecosystem, and this situation doesn’t sit right with me.

    If we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to come up with a viable plan to redirect this filthy runoff. We deserve better.

    THE SCUTTLEBUTT

    Big Stripers and Elusive Blues

    A look at the rules for cod fishing, squidding boats, and dogs

    By

    Striped bass fishing remains very good, with charter boats and party fishing boats all reporting excellent catches almost every day. The fish remain solidly camped from the twin hills behind Long Point all the way around the Race and down to the Race Point Station. The fish are getting bigger, too, with bass in the 30-inch to 40-inch bracket now dominating the catch totals.

    Tammy Rabbett, a traveling Covid nurse from Windsor, Conn. who took the summer off from nursing and is working on the CeeJay as a mate, caught this fantastic 35-inch bass last week. (Photo by Mike Rathgeber)

    My fear was that the full moon, which often stimulates bass to move on to other areas, would change things. But that didn’t happen.

    Bluefish, however, continue to be elusive in a here-today-gone-tomorrow mode. Still, the area south of the Pamet to Billingsgate Shoals seems to be holding bluefish consistently.

    For those who fish offshore for cod, a sudden and radical rule change has come from National Marine Fisheries. They are closing cod fishing south and east of Cape Cod entirely for two weeks. When fishing reopens, the minimum fish size will go from 21 to 22 inches and the bag limit will be reduced from 10 fish per day per angler to five. Time will tell where we’ll go from here.

    Things have cooled off for the small bluefin tuna that were around recently, but the giants are cooperating, and catches are good up in Stellwagen Bank these days.

    The fin whales have mostly disappeared from the Race, but with as much food as we currently have in the water, I have little doubt they will be back.

    And now a rant on two issues.

    The squidders from Boston are now here fishing every night. We have large numbers of squid in our harbor at this time, as we usually do, so these folks are here to harvest squid to bring back to Boston. The issue I have about this has to do with safety. I see four guys with a generator and a big light piled into a 14-foot boat with very little freeboard, and I wonder why the same Coast Guard boat that checks every pleasure craft during the day for safety protocols isn’t going out there at night to see if these boats are up to speed with safety equipment and load limits. It certainly doesn’t look like they are from what I can see, but a quick inspection would put that question to rest.

    We had negative full moon tides last week, and from my boat I saw people walking their dogs again on the clam grants in the West End. And it wasn’t just dogs: someone was actually riding a horse over the grant. It’s time to start putting pressure on our select board to at least post signs telling people to keep their pets away from these shellfish beds. These are areas where we are growing food for human consumption.

    Come on, people. Think about the effect your pets have on the clam grants before you walk them there or set them loose for a run.

    THE SCUTTLEBUTT

    It’s Looking Like an Epic Summer

    The harbor returns to normalcy for a classic Fourth of July

    By

    The waterfront looked very much as it did in pre-pandemic days for Monday’s Fourth of July celebration, as both wharves were packed with cars and people waiting for the fireworks. Boats were jammed into the inner harbor as well, and charter boats were bringing customers out on fireworks sunset cruises. It was a sight for sore eyes, indeed. The fireworks show, I thought, wasn’t as robust as some in the past — but, hey, at this point, anything that resembles normalcy is very welcome.

    Provincetown in blue-sky, full-summer mode, which Capt. Mike Rathgeber says will last only three blinks of an eye. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    The striped-bass fishing remains white hot. This is shaping up to be a better-than-usual season, and if the bass don’t do their disappearing act or their not-wanting-to-bite thing, as they sometimes do in July, this summer could end up being epic.

    Large numbers of fish are camped from Wood End to the National Seashore ranger station at Race Point at depths from 20 to 150 feet. The ticket to catching them has been fresh bait — which has presented a challenge, because the mackerel that are typically found in the harbor and at Wood End have been out on Stellwagen Bank and haven’t budged. This means that if you want to bait fish you first have to make the run up there to get your bait. Five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline makes that task a bit hard on the checkbook and, for charter and party fishing boats, on the bottom line.

    Trolling has been less effective than using live bait, but the real disappointment has been an inability to catch bass consistently with swimming plugs or jigs. It’s been just one here or there.

    Bluefish have pretty much left the area for now, except for a few being caught down past the Pamet towards Billingsgate shoals. There is an abundance of small bluefin tuna around, however. These fish, in the 30-to-80-pound category, have been seen just north of the Race on up to Stellwagen Bank. We got into them one day on the CeeJay and hooked two but lost them both.

    National Marine Fisheries has now closed recreational bluefin tuna fishing for all fish over 73 inches for the remainder of the year. Those fish can now be taken only by those with commercial licenses.

    There are a lot of whales around, as of this writing. Fin whales have been seen feeding from off Herring Cove all the way to the Peaked Hill bar on the backside. One day we counted seven fin whales in that area — a nice bonus on a fishing trip. There are also a lot of humpback whales on the southern part of Stellwagen Bank, feeding on the enormous numbers of sand eels and mackerel there.

    I’ve always said summer goes by in three blinks of the eye: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. We have had two blinks, so now is the time to get out there and enjoy the great fishing and whale watching available to us before that third blink.

    THE SCUTTLEBUTT

    All Those Short Bass Bode Well for Future Fishing

    Meanwhile, fin whales put on a show at Race Point

    By

    16-pound bluefish
    A 16-pound bluefish was caught this week by Carsten Brunn on the Beth Ann. (Photo Mike Rathgeber)

    The dog days of summer are certainly upon us, and summertime fishing and whale watching are in full swing.

    Striped bass have been biting despite the July heat, which typically sends them into deeper waters with not such great appetites. The best fishing has been in the Race Point area, as well as off Beach Point in North Truro. These fish continue to be on the smaller size, and with the minimum for keepers at 28 inches, the high number of 27-inch fish in our waters is frustrating fishermen no end. The good news is that all these fish will be keepers later on this season or next — and there are a lot of them.

    The other day I had a Div. of Marine Fisheries person out on the Cee-Jay doing a fish survey. They used to count, weigh, and measure all the fish that were caught on the trip. Now they just pick two or three people at random to survey. The problem I have with this is the boat caught 22 bass on that trip, four of which were keepers. The rest, of course, were shorts and thus released back into the water. But the two people who were chosen for the survey caught nothing. So when the surveyor inputs the data into the database it looks like a fishless trip, when in fact it was a very successful trip.

    These data, in part, determine what the catch rules and regulations will be going forward. But the data aren’t very credible because of the methods used to collect them. In just the same way, the gigantic body of bass outside the three-mile limit were not counted in the population survey database last year because those fish were not in a legal catch area.

    My unscientific take on the status of the striped bass population here is that the species is in great shape, judging from the significant number of shorts around. There might have been a reproduction hiccup for a year or two, but that was followed by two seemingly banner reproductive years, as evidenced by the large number of 23-to-27-inch fish. Once again, for the third consecutive year, the bigger commercial-size bass appear to have bypassed Cape Cod and have been mostly in the waters off Boston and the South Shore.

    There have been a large number of fin whales feeding off Race Point all week. What started out as a whale or two has grown to a pod of five to seven whales charging around the Race. They can easily be seen from the beach; a pair of binoculars enhances the viewing. Better yet, hop on a whale watch boat to view these magnificent fin whales, the second biggest animal on the planet after the blue whale, up close and personal.

    Great white shark sightings are being reported a little more lately, with most occurring on the backside ocean beaches around High Head and Head of the Meadow. The seal population at Long Point is growing by leaps and bounds. Something has to give eventually. I counted over 100 hauled out on the beach at Long Point; last Sunday the area was packed with boats and people, with some swimming among the seals, who seem very comfortable with the human presence. I shudder to think of the possibilities for a tragedy.

     

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