COASTAL REPORT:  Is this June or April?  Nothing but northeasterly winds and rain and fog. Please Mr. Weatherman (or woman) let the sun shine!

HOT SPOT OF THE WEEK:  Cape Cod Canal. There has been a good run of stripers in the mid 30-pound to the upper 40-pound range. Fishing in the Cape Cod Canal has been red hot one minute and stone cold the next. Outside the east end of the canal in the dump area there are still schools of mackerel with some nice stripers under them. Before the nasty weather, fishing for stripers around the Race at Provincetown had been getting better but not much of a report since the bad weather. Still hearing rumors of tuna fish. Hope everyone is ready for a good season. Ground fishing on Stellwagen Bank has moved to deeper water with good catches of pollock, haddock and cod. Watch for tagged wolf fish and tuna – there is a reward. June 1 was opening day for commercial tuna fishing so soon we should get a more detailed report on them. Back over in Plymouth and Duxbury Bay striper fishing remains hot. Some days getting live mackerel is tough so try jigging Sibiki  rigs real early in the morning before the boats push them down. Off Brewer’s Ledge there are also lots of small harbor pollock to use live lining for stripers. Hot spots in Duxbury Bay are Bug Light, Clark’s Island and the Cordage Channel. Inside Plymouth Harbor there are breaking fish at the town pier and at the herring run at Plymouth Rock.

Best baits to use if you don’t have live bait are soft plastics like Shankas in Glow Green, Bubble Gum and Glow White. Plugs are also working well. In the Cordage Channel you can find lots of feeding stripers in all sizes. Flounder fishing is hot too but most anglers are chasing feeding stripers. Best bait for flounder are clams and sea worms. Some of the flatties are in the four-plus pound size. Over at the jetties in Green Harbor plugging and chunk mackerel are the hot baits here. From Farnham’s Rock to the mouth of the North River you can find schools of mixed size mackerel. Talked to one happy angler this past weekend and he said he had landed a 50 inch, 44 pound striper off the coast in Marshfield on a live mackerel trolled slowly. There are lots of stripers in all sizes all along the coast here now. In 70 feet of water outside the North River or at the Scituate bell you can jig up some mackerel. Inside the North and South Rivers fishing has been fantastic. If you can’t get outside the mouth to get live bait try Shankas or any top water plug – these fish are hungry!