I was in two different pools about when the first fish would be caught, and the short summary in both pools, everyone guessed earlier than May 4th! Congrats to Matt Aguiar for his perseverance and finally getting Nantucket on the board. To those paying attention, Boston and Maine got there first fish before we did, why you might ask? We are not entirely sure as our waters are LOADED with bait. We know we are always later than the cape and vineyard, but to lose to Maine is ridiculous! Our guess is the fish likely held tighter to the shoreline, or stayed offshore longer, who knows, but what we do know is the first fish is here, more WILL follow and we are jam packed with big bait, and small bait will be in here shortly.

As the wind turned yesterday to the North, the North side of the island got a sweet smell to it, my guess is this is mostly mackerel. I have not heard many reports of people going out and catching, but considering the marks on a buddies depth-sounder yesterday and their typical pattern, we are confident the Mackerel are out front. As for the south shore, if you want to see a show, go spend 20 minutes on the beach. There are lots of gannets and gulls crashing from Tom Nevers to Madaket. These Gannets are mostly likely crashing on Herring, Squid, Mackerel and Sand Eels. The birds are big and the bait is big. Remember, spring time is when most fish begin the reproduction process, with herring laying eggs between March and May and Squid typically reproduce late Spring into early Summer. These larger bait fish not only fuel our epic June “Spring Run,” but the juveniles feed the baby blues, schoolie stripers, bonito, and Albies for most of the summer. We will likely start seeing the first offspring in the next week or two in the harbors.

As to where to fish, typically we would say go West to Madaket, but we are pretty confident with the late start and large amounts of bait, that the fish will be filling into the main harbor, north shore and south shore very quickly here. I would suggest to not make fishing an expedition, but follow the lead of many locals and keep a rod in your car and fish whenever the opportunity presents itself. Honestly, if you find yourself with an hour to kill, go to the closest beach, inside of the West Jetty, Cisco and Madaket harbor should all be producing numbers by weeks end. And what to fish with. In the shallow waters something smaller like a Hogy or a Storm rubber swimmer and in the surf, something shiny like a small hopkins or an EXO or a deadly dick.