Intro | Water Types | Tide & Wind | Tactics | Light or Night? | Gear

Water Types
The Cape can be divided into several distinct water types: beachfronts, coves, estuaries, and flats. Some tide and light stages provide better conditions than others. Also the type of fly line you use can make a difference. See the Gear section for more on the necessary equipment for fishing this kind of water.

Beachfronts are most commonly associated with the outer Cape. Many fly fishers ignore beachfronts because of their great expanse, crashing waves, strong current, and stiff headwinds. But beachfronts typically hold feeding fish all day and are well worth fishing. Stripers and blues can be stationed in a variety of feeding positions during different stages of tides. You can fish beachfronts on any tide and virtually any light.

At the higher tide intermediate or fast-sinking lines work best, and while more fish are typically caught during low-light conditions, many are caught during midday. Stripers move close to shore and try to trap bait in the wash, some ten feet or so from the beach. As the tide drops or begins to come in, floating or intermediate lines and lower light intensities are better choices.

Beachfronts offer excellent fishing on an outgoing tide, too. At low tide each beachfront takes on a unique shape and structure, and what appeared to be uniform deep water six hours ago then appears as fishable sandbars, tidal rips, and troughs. The incoming tide moves the baitfish around, and predator fish chase them up against sandbars, through tidal rips, and into the slower trough water.

You can typically walk out far on the dropping tide and fish your way back on the incoming tide. Keep moving and fish both sides of the bars. Stripers trap bait on the ocean side of the sandbars if they can; otherwise they chase the bait through any break in the sandbar and into the slower, deeper trough water. Poppers and surface lines may be best for the ocean front, but sinking lines are probably necessary for the deeper trough water. First or last light or low light are good times to fish the shallower water.

Backwater areas like coves or estuaries can hold fish at various times of the day, providing fish an opportunity to feed often and heavily without navigating fast currents.

Different parts of the coves and estuaries fish better during different stages of the tides. On an incoming through high tide, bass and blues follow bait all the way into the farthest reaches of a cove or estuary. At high tide the water there is deep and slow-moving, and predator fish like the protection and slower currents.

In the coves fish feed less than ten feet from shore, and the conditions closely resemble pond fishing: The water is flat and moves gently. You can locate stripers in these areas by the popping sounds they make as they take bait at the surface, or by the numbers of sand eels, spearing, or bigger bait actually leaping from the water.

A stealthy approach is best, beginning some 20 feet from the water's edge. If you rush directly to the water, you may spook the best fish of the day, the large stripers feeding close to shore. Either floating or intermediate lines are good choices, and can catch large fish at any time of day.

Fishing positions change on the outgoing tide, and for best fishing you should move to the mouth of the cove or estuary. As the water returns to the main current, it typically forms a spillage trough and at a sand or mussel bar the fish wait in the slightly deeper water for the bait to spill on their seaward return. Fishing the mouths is best on the outgoing tide, second best on an incoming tide. Again, floating or intermediate lines work best.

Flats fishing is one of the most spectacular types of fishing. During low-light conditions (first light, last light, night) predator fish leave their deeper-water protection to chase schools of bait into shallow-water flats. Stripers inhale smaller bait like sand eels or shrimp from the surface with a pop and leave a surface ring like a trout taking a dun. On the flats, a string of bait jumping out of a fish's path and into the air is a telltale sign. The best fishing there is during the first three hours of the incoming tide. Floating or sinking-tip lines are standard equipment.

Tom Keer is a Fly Fisherman field editor. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has a home on Cape Cod.

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