A Guide's Day Off

Photography by Dave Skok - Text by Steve Walburn

February/March, 2007 - Saltwater Fly Fishing Magazine

What are a bunch of hardworking guides from Martha's Vineyard supposed to do with three blank squares on their mid-summer calendar?  A litle R&R off Cape Cod sounds good.

From June into August, the sprawling white shoals and rising tides from Monomoy up to Cape Cod Bay offer classic northeastern flats fishing.  Here the lure is clouds of inshore sand eels, which attract bass of all sizes looking to pack on weight for the eventual migration back south.  Low tide at dawn will produce tailers, while a midday low is better fro cruising stripers.  A sparsely dressed Jiggy is the go-to fly.

This past July, schools of ocean sand eels held the larger bass offshore, and photographer/guide Dave Skok says the flats were a "schoolie festival."  But you'll catch bass in water barely deep enough to cover their backs on up to several feet deep.  Sometimes the stripers slide in like bonefish.  At other times they arrive in chains like cruising tarpon.  It's all sight-casting.  All addictive.  All a yearly ritual for both fish and guide.