It had been raining hard all weekend, but Mark promised perfect weather for our trip. (perfect weather for a fisherman is ANY weather as long as there is little to no wind).

When we met at 5:00 am on Monday it was still drizzling, and as we puttered out of Saquatucket Harbor, the rain had subsided to a thickening fog. The weather called for temperatures in the high 80's and even 90's, but we both were in sweatshirts and foul weather gear. There was no wind though and we both assured each other that the warm summer heat would soon burn off the fog and we would be up to our armpits in bass.

Seven hours later we were still shivering uncontrollably at high noon at the height of summer.  After losing our way at the tip of Monomoy in a fog so thick you could barely see the front of the boat and after hearing and smelling fish, we had only hooked into one fish. Mark had a giant on his line. He was using spinning gear with a 3 oz lead-head jig when a fish took it and kept it. It must have been huge the way it took it and bent Marks rod around, never stopping, just running full speed ahead until the line broke.

Finally, at around noon, when we had all but given up, the sun began to burn through and we started to warm up. So did the fishing. We found a rip current along a stretch of beach that had bass so thick that they looked like bait from a distance. And they were hungry too. As we floated the current, we watched as huge bass cruised below evenly spaced, every 2 feet or so, for what seemed the entire length of the beach. Later, they schooled up and created a very tight ball. I've seen big schools of bass before on the Barnstable flats, but the thing that was so impressive about this school was the average size of the fish. The average size seemed to be around 33 inches. A runt was 26! This was the first day that I caught more legal fish than shorts. I had 3 legals; a 33, a 36 and a 35.  Mark had even more. All but one of his fish measured in above 33 inches, and even the "little" one may have been as well. He didn't bother to measure him.

We wore ourselves out in the next two hours and decided to leave the rest of the stripers to the pod of seals who had been sleeping on the beach. By now, they had woken up and were busy grabbing their mid-afternoon snack from the very nervous ball of fish.

Mark took a bluefish on the way in to Saquatucket, explaining that the temperature difference on the east and west side of Monomoy plays a major part in where you will find certain species of fish.

(The current was south to north along the beach and the fish were eating sand eels about 6 inches long. We used olive and white clousers effectively and Mark had success with a big fluffy orange squid-like fly. We used sinking line with various retrieves. Short leader was a winning suggestion from Mark....thanks Mark, I've retired another fly on your boat.)

There was a slight breeze, and the tide was now 2 hours out. The mosquitoes were terrible, so I only pried the muddy banks of the Bass Hole for a few minutes before heading  for open water. 

I had 2 choices...either go to my old haunt over by the mouth of Barnstable Harbor or to try a couple other spots to the east. I chose to go east and was glad I did. 

The wind had died to nothing by the time I found the fish. I found them right around half tide (6 am), feeding heavily on sand eels. My new rattler pattern proved extremely effective and I soon lost count of how many fish I had caught. Most fish were around 20-24 inchers, with a couple that reached 26 inches. With my 9 ft 8 wt Sage, these 26 inchers felt like 36 inchers. They are well fed fish, shiny and strong, all sporting at least a few sea lice.  They took the Rattler on every cast and preferred a rhythmic strip, allowing the fly to stop for a moment between pulls. I used intermediate sink line. Other effective patterns were the olive Clauser and various other small sand eel patterns.

After that action died down, I spotted a huge school on the horizon and headed out to see what I could do. I had it all to myself...as far as I could see or hear, the surface boiled with bluefish and bass. I lost my first two casts to Bluefish, but not after a good fight. I can get them to the boat, but as soon as the line hits a particular angle, they cut the tippett. The next fish was a small bass, then another blue, then all bass for a long time. Even some big ones mixed in.

The sun had been out all day and both Maya and I were feeling a bit beat by 11:00 am, so we started to head in. As I approached the middle bar, already a good six feet under the incoming tide, I looked for and saw the sand dollars that I remembered seeing a couple years back. This time they were white...not black...I am hoping to find out more about these critters and when and why they are only on this bar.

Then I paddled over the channel and onto the flats, and as the bottom came up, I started to see fish....big ones and lots of them. They were cruising in 2 to 4 feet of water, eating an endless supply of sand eels. I made a note of where I saw them and then headed for the beach to let Maya run in the shallow water and for us both to have lunch. After our break, we headed back to the spot I had chosen and cast several different patterns to cruising bass. It was tricky and they were very selective. Following the flies all the way to the boat then retreating. Even though I was using a 9 foot 14 lb fluorocarbon leader with 2 feet of 12 lb fluoro tippett at the end, they still watched all my patterns. 

It was a size 4 tiny sand eel pattern that finally fooled the big one. I presented to two fish cruising together, and to my thrill, the bigger of the two chased it down, opened wide and inhaled it. I set the hook. She was on and away we went....(as the fish got way into my backing without slowing down, I figured I better haul my anchor and give chase) my version of the Nantucket sleigh ride. 

I brought her in as fast as I could, grabbed her mouth with my thumb and flipped the barbless hook out of her mouth. Lifting her into the canoe for a quick picture I laid her on the back seat.  She spanned the entire 30 inch seat plus the width of one of the gunwales. Putting the tape to her, she measured in at 31 inches! My first legal of the year. It took a while to revive her, but she finally came to...giving my thumb a nice hard bite with her raspy teeth, kicking her tail and zipping off to a grassy spot to recuperate. 

I presented to a couple more fish and catching one smaller one, but by now, I was really getting cooked by the sun and besides, being my first time out for a full day of fishing, there wasn't much left of my cast after 9 hours of throwing and pulling.

I packed it in, ran the dog one more time on the beach, and headed for the ramp, a good 2 miles away. Within a couple hundred feet of paddling, a strong breeze came up behind me and I cruised in with no trouble. All in all, it was a perfect day. I couldn't have hoped for better conditions with wind, crowds, fish, pattern selection... everything clicked.... it was the kind of day you wonder what you did to deserve it.