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Date: May 18, 2019 Body of Water: Waquoit Bay, Falmouth, Massachusetts Boat: Maritime 1480 With: Alone Target: Striped Bass Time: 6:30 AM - 10:30 AM Conditions: Bright and clear with a brisk, but fading wind from the NW; building tide. Once again, I launched at Falmouth's White's Landing on the Childs River. I wasn't sure how I could top the previous day's success, but I managed to land 28 bass to 26 inches in this intense session. Only a couple of early fish fell to the Smack-it popper, with all other bass eating the jighead and fluke. I made a concerted effort to target any visible current seams, and to work at identifying where the bass were holding. The old steelheaders' adage of "following the bubbles" proved useful, as typically these edges offered more bites than other areas. Moreover, my little stretch of water proved to be dynamic, as tide, wind and current interplayed to apparently move the bass around. I even had a little time to explore, but I never found another group of active fish. I left early, because it was time to pick up my host, Uncle M, and hit Buzzard's Bay for the sea bass season opener! Date: May 18, 2019 Body of Water: Buzzards Bay, Bourne, Massachusetts Boat: Maritime 1480 With: Uncle M Target: Sea Bass Time: 12:30 PM - 4:30 PM Conditions: Bright and clear with a brisk, but fading wind from the NW; this swung around to the south and gradually intensified. High Tide for Buzzards Bay was at about 3 PM; the current from the Cape Cod Canal was 2 - 3 knots at the beginning of the trip We launched at Bourne's facility at Monument Beach. Beware, despite the lack of signage, there's a hefty fine here if you are not properly identified as a Bourne resident or non-transient visitor! Regardless, as we approached the main shipping channel at the west end of the Cape Cod Canal, I saw a boat lift what appeared to be a hefty sea bass from the water. We decided to start here. We made a few drifts with the outbound current from about buoys 12 through 16. Working the spoils off the eastern edge of the Canal, we covered depths of about 18 to 40 feet with squid-tipped 2-ounce bucktails. It didn't take long for Uncle M to catch the first fish of the afternoon, a fine porgy (scup) approaching 16 inches. This was not the type of scup I remembered from my youth! We managed a few more scup, smallish sea bass to just over 15 inches and a sea robin in the first hour or so. The wind had diminished to near calm and started to swing to the south. We decided to take advantage of the conditions and make the run to Cleveland Ledge, a known sea bass haunt. As we progressed on our run, we noticed that there didn't seem to be any boats near the ledge marker, and that a group of boats had gathered to the north and east. We stopped short and joined this group in about 35 feet of water to the east of the shipping channel, approximately off Megansett Harbor. The next couple of hours were filled with nibbles, bites and hookups. Repeated drifts (many boats were anchored, but I prefer to drift) yielded a couple more sea robins, a small flounder, a half dozen more sea bass to 16 inches, and probably a dozen more scup, including another really nice one (16 inches.) With the wind continuing to strengthen, we declined the opportunity to continue on to Cleveland Ledge. We played it safe and comfortable and stayed with these fish. We never found the sea bass like we'd hoped (and several boats commented that it was still early and the big ones were likely out deeper), but it was still a very pleasant afternoon. The boat was working out great! My portable sonar was marking well on the drift, and its GPS kept us safe and on-track. We'd iced the two largest scup and the biggest sea bass. I wanted to try to "print" them. As it turned out, one cannot rush art, and the results were not satisfactory. But, after reviewing a YouTube video on "how to clean a god-damned scup", I harvested their meat to the best of my abilities and equipment. A fine meal capped a great day! What do I have to say about this? When that south wind developed, it never relented for the rest of my stay. I never made it out to Buzzards Bay again; I fell a bit short of my Sea Bass Dreams. No complaints, though; despite not aligning with my plans, everything was working out pleasingly. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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