Cape Cod Striped Bass Fishing Woods Hole, Penzance Point, Uncatena and Nonamesset Islands, Massachusetts

Fish This Well-known Fast Tidal Area for Large Striped Bass, Tautog and Bluefish

Kayak fishing Woods Hole at Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Keep in mind that you'll need good sea kayaking and kayak fishing skills , including bracing, ferry gliding, dealing with fast currents and standing waves and even the ability to roll (plus no small amount of confidence) to fish this fast, productive, potentially challenging striped bass kayak fishing area off the southwestern shores of Cape Cod.

Located just off Woods Hole and a scant couple of miles from the well-known kayak fishing areas Nobska Point at Falmouth, Buzzards Bay and the rocky Elizabeth Islands, kayak fishing Woods Hole is most often productive on striped bass and tautog so long as you have sufficient roughwater skills to handle the conditions here and know how to read tide and current tables.

Aside from fishing productive striped bass waters in a small boat you'll need the skills to stay upright in an area well-known for its fast currents, large standing waves, roughwater and general whitewater turbulence.

The area is also frequently transited by large, fast-moving and big wake-throwing ferries headed for Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket from New Bedford. Keep in mind too that the confines of Woods Hole are subject to tidal velocities that max out at seven knots during spring tides and a perigee moon phases. Days on the calendar that line up thus feature even larger breaking waves, bigger standing waves, even greater turbulence and slickwater sluices that, though glasslike, are swift and dangerous.

In short what makes this area challenging for kayak fishing makes it attractive to striped bass: fast-moving, richly-aerated water, large submerged boulders run over by fast water; large eddies and recirculating currents, and finally small whirlpools that skulk around Woods Hole like angry teenagers.

One tactic, after launching from the asphalt ramp at the aquarium at the Marine Biological Lab in downtown Woods Hole, is to carefully troll and spincast the edges of Devil's Foot Island, north of the daybeacon and riprap set up in the middle of the Woods Hole channel, being sure to stay within the lee of structures and boulders that provide cover from the current. You can hold quite comfortably in a recirculating eddy while casting jigs and soft plastics upstream in the moving water and allowing them to drift back.

Another is to use the cover of the eddies that lie off Mink Point, at Nonamesset Island, Penzance Point off Woods Hole, or the two ledge islands, Grassy Island and Red Ledge, that emerge from the boils of The Strait when the tide is down. Troll the edges of these large, protective structures at slack tide or early in the tide cycles here with tube and worm and you'll find responsive striped bass.

Keep in mind that each of the above areas requires that you either cross Woods Hole's Strait, Broadway or Branch - each known for its daunting fastwater conditions. If you the crossings at slack tide you need the skills to return, or the time to wait for the arrival of slack on the next tide.

To best plan fishing Woods Hole, and to find the time of the fifteen- to twenty-minut

e slack periods between tides, extensive tidal current data for Woods Hole in the yearly edition of Eldridge's Tide and Current book, available online and from any number of online retailers like Amazon.

If you go kayak fishing in the area, pick out a couple of landmarks to keep yourself oriented. One good landmark is the lighthouse at Nobska Point, to the northeast. Another is the cluster of research vessels at dock in Woods Hole. A third is the wide expanse of water, and overbearing homes to the north, which bracket the gap between Penzance Point and Timmy Point on Uncatena Island, the gateway to the seeming endless expanses of adjacent Buzzards Bay.