The first day was on the flats with our guide Chris Korkota.
Chris helped pioneer a technique of using a the sinking line & crab fly to fool large striped bass on the Cape Cod flats. I had never heard of this approach before. He uses a full sinking line with a 20 lb fluorocarbon leader and a heavy crab fly. Stripers often cruise together so if you see one there is a good chance others of similar size are around nearby. Once you have located some fish, you cast out your sinking fly and give it enough time to sink. A ten count is usually sufficient. Then you start your retrieve. Strip, Stip, Pause. You can vary between slow and quick strips but the pause is essential to get the fish to commit.
Our guide said that most fisherman use a intermediate clear sinking lines and clousers. The larger fish are rarely caught on small clousers. They are are easily spooked while on the shallow flats. He believes that the fish can sense an intermediate line moving in the water with their lateral lines. A sinking line resting on the bottom of the sea floor does not seem to threaten them. There are also many different types of bait that migrate in and out of Cape cod. It is difficult to match the hatch and keep up with the changing bait types, the one bait that remains constant is a crab. Chris mentioned that he has tried every type of fly, but the crab pattern seems to be the most consistent.
You have to be careful fishing these flats because 10 feet water move in during a tide. You could be out on a 3rd sand bar and find out that water has filled in the guts behind you and the water that used to be waist deep is now shoulder high. Our guide had an alarm on his phone that beeped every 15 min to notify it was time to head back in.
Overall we caught smaller fish compared to previous years, but we had two evenings with a strong outgoing tide where everyone in the group caught 50+ small striped bass & shad on the fly. A handful of 23-26 inch were caught on the trip. Pictures on the way
