Favorite Spots to Fish in Cape Cod Bay

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Fishing Cape Cod Bay isn’t necessarily a secret. There are tons of publicly available spots, and those are the majority everyone fishes. Captain Segull charts show most of these spots. With that said, I’ll break down my favorite spots to fish.

The first is Barnstable Harbor channel. This is an awesome place to fish, both incoming and outgoing tides. Primarily, we will fish with live Mackerel that we jig up in 40-60 feet near the Barnstable Harbor Bell Buoy.

Once we have our bait, we will go check out the channel and all of the holes in it and see where the fish are. In an incoming tide, we will start at the #2 can and drift all the way to the point of Sandy Neck. On an outgoing tide, we do the reverse and start at the point of Sandy Neck and drift out to the #2 can. There’s no one spot in the channel that holds Striped Bass all the time. They move with the tide and you’ll be able to figure out their movement after a couple drifts.

Second spot is in front of Corporation Beach in Dennis. You can either drift Mackerel here, or troll them on lead core line very slowly. I like to fish this area in a dropping tide. One thing to consider is to not get too close to the shore. There are a ton of very large rocks and boulders throughout the area. Stay in the 20-foot range and you will be fine.

Third spot is in front of the Cape Cod Canal with live Mackerel. Essentially, you do the same thing as in Barnstable Harbor, and drift through the channel markers. The Striped Bass will funnel in and out of the canal, depending on the tide. One thing to consider is that you cannot fish in the canal. If you enter the breakwaters, Canal Patrol will hail you on the VHF and tell you to leave the premise immediately. So, fish it with caution and don’t get into the canal.

Fourth spot is Billingsgate shoals off of Wellfleet. This is a huge area, shown on the Captain Segull chart. There’s a number of different ways to fish this area from trolling umbrella rigs, jigging bucktail jigs on wire line on the edges, to top water feeds. The technique of fishing can change daily, but the area holds so much bait and fish that it’s always worth it to check out.

As said earlier, there’s a ton of fishing spots. The ones above mentioned, are where I fish primarily, with occasionally Provincetown, where you could write an entire book on how to fish around there. Check back to our fishing reports on the blog to follow the fish and see where we’re fishing. Please use the screen shot below for some refence points!