Massachusetts

Fishing in Massachusetts

The Bay State generously offers stocks of fishing opportunities as there are both freshwater as well as saltwater fishing in Massachusetts.

Freshwater Fishing

Southeastern Massachusetts

Great Herring Pond, located in Plymouth, can be ideal for freshwater fishing in Massachusetts. It is a 376 acres lake and offers a wide variety of fishes including largemouth and smallmouth bass, golden shiner, yellow perch, American eel, brown bullhead, white perch, pumpkinseed sunfish, and chain pickerel. It is also considered as one of the greatest fishing sites on the East Coast for striped bass. Little Pond, situated just north of the Billington Sea Lake in Morton Park in Plymouth, offers banded killfish, largemouth bass, golden shiner, white sucker, chain pickerel, and bluegill.

Eastern Massachusetts

Walden Pond, located within the 400-acre Walden Pond State Park in Concord, presents a soothing tranquility to an angler and a great fishing of stocked rainbows, brownies, and brookies, and largemouth and smallmouth bass, pumpkinseeds, chain pickerel, coy carp, and brown bullheads. In winter, you can do ice-fishing too. A 204-acre Knopp’s Pond, located in Groton, is also good for stocked rainbows, brookies and brownies, so also, yellow bullheads, bluegills, cheek chubsucker, golden shiner, largemouth bass and chain pickerel.

Cape Cod

Mashpee-Wakeby Pond, a 729-acre freshwater pond in Mashpee and Sandwich, is ideal for bird-chasing and fishing of pumpkinseeds, smallmouth and largemouth bass, tessellated darter, white perch, blueback herring, white catfish, banded killfish, and alewife. Ice-fishing too is permitted in winter months. Another 30-acre pond, Harwich, is also good for chain pickerel, yellow perch, largemouth bass and brown bullheads.

Saltwater Fishing

The 1,800 miles of coastline offers the best saltwater fishing in Massachusetts with as many as 70 different species of fish identified till date, which include giant bluefin tuna, cod, flounder, tautog, bluefish and scup. But the state has long been famous for its record-size stripers, and at present has the largest and most successful striper fishery in the country!

Best Spots

On the North Shore, some of the best sites are Salisbury (State Beach), Amesbury, Newbury, Newburyport, Rowley, Ipswich, Essex, Rockport and so on. On the South Shore, there are Quincy, Weymouth, Hingham, Hull, Cohasset, Scituate, Marshfield, Duxbury, Kingston, and so on. Cape Cod contains sites like Bourne, Falmouth, Sandwich, Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, and so on. From Martha’s Vineyard, the sites are Chilmark, Edgartown, Aquinnah, Oak Bluffs, and Tisbury. Nantucket is another access point located at Jackson Point.

Seasons, Tackle and Baits

Bluefish occurs in the Massachusetts coastal waters from July to September. Casting from a boat, trolling using a medium to heavy tackle is useful. Best baits are live or dead baitfish, like squid, herring, mackerel, scup etc. and artificial lures. For black sea bass, May to September is the best season with bottom fishing from a boat using cut squid, clams and green crabs. From late July to October, you will find bonito using spinning gear, bait casting, light boat rods, trolling and fly fishing, with baits like squid, small jigs, spoons, plugs, flies and strip baits. June to mid-October is the season for bluefish; you can use all small bait fish, spoons, jigs, plugs, flies and spinners, casting from shore with spin and fly fishing gear, and trolling. The deep water treasure of Massachusetts, cod, is a year-round and most sought after fish. You can use sea worms, mackerel, clams, crabs, jigs and strips of fish as baits, using medium to stiff boat rod, conventional reel and at least 50 lb. test line from boats. Even cusk is an year-round fish and is caught using the same tackle, baits and techniques. Haddock is a delicious fish caught from May to November using seaworms, and clams by still-fishing from a boat, with medium action rod. Halibut is the largest flatfish, can be caught year-round using seaworms, strips of fish, clams, jigs and sandlance with medium to stiff rod from a boat. Pollock offers the thrill of a bluefish and flesh of a cod. May and October are the best runs. Use the same baits as cods in deeper water and small plugs, mackerel, jigs, and metal lures with a strip of squid in inshore waters. Still-fishing, casting, trolling are best. Blue and maco sharks are best fighters providing thrill to your fishing, but you will better release them as is encouraged. Chumming and baited hooks and trolling, and drifting with heavy tackle and wire leader. Striped bass or the striper too has been encouraged to release, but when you keep it provides delicious meat. It ranges from 1 to 60 pounds. Best season is from mid-April to October. Casting from shore, and boat-trolling using light to heavy tackle and baits like seaworms, eels, herring, squid, plugs, spoons and spinners are all good to catch this fish. Bluefin and yellowfin tunas offer a challenging and thrilling catching experience. The giant bluefin is the biggest and most attractive of the tunas amongst the fishing in Massachusetts. Yellowfin are commonly taken in near offshore waters. June to October is the season for these fishes and they are caught by trolling, and chunk baits with chum using medium to heavy tackle and chum slick, plastic squid, multi-squid rigs, jigs, daisy chains and artificial lures.

You will definitely love to go for fishing in Massachusetts. So plan it at the earliest!