Fishing Devil's Bridge

Back in April I was out of town and missed Jack's 7th birthday party (For those in attendance, Jack was the ring bearer in our wedding back in 2006.) Despite my absence at the party, I sent along a gift certificate for him and his dad (Matt) to spend a day salt water fishing on my dad's boat. After a busy summer, we finally agreed that Saturday, September 13th was the day to go fishing. The only goal of this trip was for Jack to catch a fish, didn't matter what size or kind.

My dad and I had pulled his boat out of the water when the remains of hurricane Hannah came through a little over a week ago. With the boat on the trailer, it givesus the flexibility to launch from the boat ramp at Falmouth Harbor. I left the house at 5am, picked up a coffee & bagel at Dunkin Donuts on Main Street and launched the boat in Falmouth Harbor around 5:30. It was still dark and drizzling as I put up the canopy, set up the GPS and fish finder and got the boat prepared for a day of fishing. Matt & Jack arrived by 6am and we pushed off just before sunrise.

Despite the light rain, visibility in Vineyard Sound was decent, probably 2 nautical miles. I figured we would start at a rip off Marthas Vineyard called "Middle Ground", a popular fishing spot where the depth changes from 8 to 25 feet. We trolled the rip for 30 minutes and did have a fish on, only to have it come loose half way to the boat. We were marking plenty of fish on the fish finder, mostly smaller stuff on the surface that were likely bluefish.

While we trolled along the rip I watched boat after boat go past, all of them headed west towards the west side of the island. Despite marking fish on Middle Ground, I couldn't resist the temptation of bigger fish on the west side of the island. We pulled the lines in and headed west towards Devils Bridge, a ledge off of Gay Head in the northwest corner of the island.

The tide was running against us as we made the 30 minute run down to Devils Bridge. At one point I turned around to see four other boats following us down the coastline. There were plenty of boats anchored up on Devils Bridge when we got there and the seas where decent, just the occassional big rolling swell. I identified a good trolling route outside the other boats and we let out two lines trolling a tube & worm rig. A tube & worm rig (t&w) is nothing more than a rubber tube with a hook in the end, with a live sea worm attached to the hook as a teaser.

The fish finder is marking big fish sitting on the bottom, a clear sign that there are striped bass in the area. On our second pass, it's FISH ON! I hand the rod to Jack and he puts all his effort into just hanging on. Matt & I quickly recognize that Jack is going to need some help so we both hold the rod in front of him so he can crank the reel with both hands. In no time the fish was at the boat and I grabbed the leader and pulled it on board. Jack had his first salt water fish... an 18lb striped bass that was almost as big as he was.

With lines back in the water, we continued to troll along the rip. Not to long after we had another fish on. Matt got that fish to the boat, another striped bass that was close to the 28" limit. After that it quieted down and we were not marking many fish on the fish finder. We decided to call it quits at 11:30am and motored back to Falmouth Harbor.

Despite the overcast skies and occassional drizzle of rain we were able to find some fish and get Jack his first salt water fish. A successful day in my book.