The Fishing News

Everyone who’s ever gone fishing knows the anguish of losing a fish - and there are many ways to lose a fish. But perhaps the most mysterious way is getting spooled. 

Water temperatures south of the Cape are hitting 70-75 degrees. That's not great news for anglers looking for striped bass. But who cares? Because here comes the most exciting fishing action of the year: fast fish.

We can admit it.  We're a bit spoiled for choices when it comes to fishing for bluefin tuna. 

Bluefin are the charismatic tuna species in our waters.  They're the biggest tuna we see, ranging from 30-lb juveniles all the way up to 800-lb giants. In our region they arrive in June and stay around until November.

As we head into August and warmer waters, fishermen's thoughts turn to that delicious bottom-dwelling oddity, summer flounder.

The five-gallon bucket is a staple for most fishermen. It can haul tackle, bait, and your catch. For most anglers, it's a repurposed item, castoff from a jobsite. Actually purchasing a bucket from a hardware store for a few dollars? What luxury, what self-indulgence.

A couple of companies now want to change these age-old rules. They're introducing a new category to fishing accessories: the premium five-gallon bucket.   

Buzzards Bay and the south-facing side of the Cape from Woods Hole to Chatham mark the northenmost range of the blue crab. But just because we're at the edge of the range, doesn't mean we don't have these critters in abundance. They're there for the catching, and they're great eating. 

On June 26 the commercial fishing season opened for striped bass. As of Friday, July 7, just over 100,000 lbs of striper have been landed, or about 13% of the yearly state quota of 800,885 lbs. 

This is good news for people who don't fish, or fisherman not having a lucky day, in that locally caught striped bass should be available at fish markets, and you should be able to find it on the menu at restaurants. 

Summer bluefish are arriving, just as we would expect for this time of year, as the waters of the Sounds are warming. Did I hear you groan? It's true that some people are a little less enthusiastic when you mention bluefish—and it usually has to do not so much with the fishing as the eating.

So here's your remedy.  

Spring and early summer brings the fishery for squid to our local waters. Boats from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and elsewhere target squid with small mesh trawls, meaning nets towed behind fishing boats. There's also a weir fishery in Nantucket Sound.

Around the Cape and Islands there’s no shortage of great fish to go for, but there's one fish that doesn’t get a lot of respect. It’s the sea robin.  Maybe that's because it's the only local fish that makes a croak of protest when you pull it from the water (we've got the audio).

"It's a very cool looking fish," says Kevin Blinkoff, of On The Water magazine. "It's reddish-brown, yellow, and orange. And probably most remarkable, they have these huge, wing-like pectoral fins."