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The Ditch
- 30 feet deep right next to where you are standing
- deep fast moving water
- daytime action can outpace night fishing
- rugged structure
- 17 miles - 8 miles fishable from shore
- Canal tide charts and the Eldridge Guide predict the time of current change. This is the key---plan your fishing around the direction of current. Some spots produce well on an east current, and some produce better on the west. Also, you have to tailor your methods according to the current flow. If you’re fond of fishing bait on the bottom with a sinker, with few exceptions, this is best done around slack tide, as the heaviest sinker you can throw won’t hold bottom on a raging current. If you doubt this, you’ll do little more than add to what is already one of Earth’s richest lead deposits. On a running current, the best methods are drift-chunking using light rubber-core or egg sinkers to help get a chunk down below the surface, drifting live eels, using sub-surface swimmers like a Gibbs bottle plug or a darter, or deep jigging with heavy bucktails, jig-heads and plastic, or an eel skin jig. At slack, productive methods include fishing bait on the bottom with a sinker, and plugging with lures like a Gibbs Polaris by day, or a big metal-lipped swimming plug by night.
- I suggest 25# or 30# mono, 30# Fireline, or minimum of 50# spun braid for the Canal.
- popular spots (crowded): the Cribbin, Portagee Hole, the Radar Towers, the Jungle and so on
- What I suggest is riding the Canal on a bike by daytime, and scoping out the structure. Look for points and mussel beds that jut out from the bank. Look for places where there are rips, backwashes, and seams between the main current and a backwash. Make some casts with a 3-4 ounce bank sinker, to get a feel for the bottom. Feel the sinker bouncing and take note of places where the bottom suddenly drops down a few feet. Carry a notebook and jot places down.
- Often you’ll hear the regulars talk of “the breaking tides”. They’re referring to the twice a month low slack current, where it falls around the time of first light. For most of the Canal fishing season, these tides occur for 4-5 days around the new and full moons. Some old timers also call them “minus tides”, as they are marked by one or two asterisks in the official Canal tide chart. What it means, basically, is that bottom clearance at dead low tide is less than normal because the tide ebbs more on the new and full moon. Often, on these early morning slack tides, fish will be seen thrashing on the surface chasing bait. These are the times you want to have your big surface poppers with you, and be able to cast accurately. Yellow plugs work year-in, year out on these tides, and mackerel pattern plugs are also productive whenever the macks are present in quantity. Bait supplies vary from year to year, and some years, plugging is slow. In other years, you can find bass tearing up the surface from one end of the Ditch to the other.
- Alan from Red Top said there are still blues and bass showing up in the mornings, but eels drifted in the overnight hours are producing the most consistent results. With the full moon tides, another run of bass could make its way through the Cape Cod Canal this weekend.
- Current/Tide Chart: http://www.nae.usace.army.mil/recreati/ccc/navigation/Tide%202012.pdf
Hostels (saturday night possibly)
- truro -
- hyannis - 111 Ocean Street, Hyannis, MA
Other places to fish
- Plum Island - 1 70th St, Newburyport, MA 01950
- Race Point (tip of cape cod) - Just past Cape Cod National Seashore, Provincetown Municipal Airport (PVC), Provincetown, MA 02657
- Nauset - 237 Beach Road, East Orleans, MA
Todo:
- Yellow plugs for morning low tide slack
- Get some good bucktails for the ditch
- Gibbs polaris for daytime fishing at slack
- Big metal-lipped swimming plug for night
- Running current: Gibbs Bottle plug or darter
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