COASTAL REPORT: Here we are well into the month of July and tuna fishing has been slow at best. Around the backside of Cape Cod, near the land point of the Golf Ball, a few tuna have been caught. There are lots of schools of bait with whales and some tuna here. There are lots of boats but just a few hookups.

Over at Peaked Hill Bar, fishing for stripers is slow also, but jigging for monster-size bluefish is the best in years with many blues at 12-plus pounds. Black and purple or black and red Hotjigs work the best.

Up at the Race at Provincetown striper fishing is much better with many fish in the legal size limit. Caution: watch out for very large seals. One boat was fighting a striper when a seal saw a free meal. Needless to say, the seal won after a nasty battle. Is this the beginning of great white sharks showing up at Provincetown?

Across Cape Cod Bay at Plymouth and Duxbury Bays, fishing remains good to excellent. There have been some nice stripers caught on live bait (best bait is pogies). Hot spots inside Duxbury are the Cowyard, Brown’s Bank, Bug Light and Clark’s Island, but don’t overlook Warren’s Cove or the Cordage Channel.

Along with good striper fishing, flounder and fluke fishing is at its peak. There are lots of schools of stripers and bluefish feeding on top so watch for the schools and feeding birds. If you have a throw-net or weighted treble hooks, you can find pogies to use for live bait or cut the bellies to use on fluke rigs. Fluke and some nice flounder can be found from the Powder Point Bridge to all the small sandy channels throughout Duxbury Bay.

Inside Plymouth when the boat and beach traffic is slow you can find schools of stripers and bluefish popping up, chasing bait schools. Top water or metal lures are the best here. Inside Plymouth Harbor, after-dark anglers have been catching stripers from the Town Pier. Over at High Pines Ledge the bite is still the same, red hot one minute and stone cold the next. Beach anglers are doing okay from Duxbury Beach, slinging eels or chunking bait. Over at Green Harbor, flounder and fluke fishing is hot on the Burke’s Beach side of the entrance can. Lots of nice fluke are being caught on fluke rigs tipped with squid strips. Flounder fishing is also really good -- try using hi-low rigs with sea worms and clams. Night fishing off the jetties has been good on incoming tides best bet is eels or chunking mackerel.

From Bluefish Cove to the mouth of the North River, fishing seems hit or miss. About three miles outside the North River, you can still find schools of mackerel. The best striper fishing here is inside the North and South Rivers. Lots of stripers up to 34 inches are being caught on live mackerel. Best bet here is fishing in the early morning and just after dark.

At the entrance bell to the North River there’s a good bite on flounder and fluke. Live bait or chunking has been good from Fourth Cliff to First Cliff on falling tides. There is a Marine Fisheries Advisory about striped bass with skin lesions on them. Basically, the lesions look like red sores. Please contact MarineFish@state.ma.us if you find any of these fish. Do not handle these fish.  I don’t know of anyone who has found these fish, but its best to be cautious.

Don’t forget to take a kid fishing!