Monomoy Island

[Bolonsky Adam]

It's an awesome place to fish or paddle and an adventure even if the skunk is out. It's the southeasternmost tip of Cape Cod where Chatham dribbles off in the direction of Nantucket's Great Point.

Big stripers along the edges of the bars where they drop off into the deepwater, lots of blues and bonito at the rips at the southernmost tip (far right) and along the guzzles on the west side (center left).

I hacked this image together from a pile of files I picked up via ftp at the Massachusetts GIS site. The colors are screwy because I think the sectioned pictures were taken in sequence at different tides and times of day.

Anywow, the scale here on this image is roughly nine/ten miles from left to right, or north to south (shown here horizontal so the image fits on the NEKF site).

Obviously the gap at South Beach has changed but everything else is essentially the same, especially the gaps between the two Monomoys. Look carefully and you'll see that the gap is shootable by at least three routes regardless of the tide.

This is a great place to paddle and fish but man you have to work hard to get far enough away the put-in to the big fish: rountrip minimum usually is roughly nine miles from Stage Harbor or Morris Island.

Worth it. In some spots it's like flatsfishing for bonefish.

And from Chatham you also have access to the amazing rips and whitewater at the Chatham Harbor breach if you're a whackjob like Stephens and company.

[markstephens]

Yeah, the fishing was pretty hit or miss there this summer/fall, but now I know to bring my surf boat next time. Even on a virtually flat day, the Chatham Harbor rips and sandbars have surfable waves, especially on an outgoing tide. You can put in right across the street from Chatham Light in the off-season. (Easy carry with a short boat, but would be a ball-buster with a heavy British sea kayak.)

Cowabunga, dude!