High Hook Charter Fishing

About

Charter fishing is one of the great recreational activities that the coast of Massachusetts has to offer. From May until late October, High Hook Charters is committed to offering you great fishing trips for all types of fish no matter how experienced of an angler you are. Early in the season we like to leave before sun up to catch the early morning bite which brings whales and tuna to the surface in frenzies. However, as the season goes on the bite tends to be a little later in the day.

For Tuna we head out 15 miles from the Gurnet lighthouse to Stellwagen Bank, a bank that at its shallowest part is 65 feet deep on the Southwest corner. The most common way we fish is with live bait which we hang from a kite. Depending on what is available, we use either pogies or mackerel, but will put out a bluefish every once in awhile to try for a giant. High Hook fishes some of the best waters in the World for the Bluefin tuna. While fishing for tuna, it is not unlikely to see whales, dolphins, seals, turtles, and sharks. Early in the season we get some nice 20-30 lbs striped bass on the bank as well.

The striped bass and bluefish charters are done mostly in Duxbury and the surrounding bays. We use live mackerel early in the season, and live pogies when they come in around early June. If you like catching the smaller “schoolies”, we can do light tackle action for them as well.

About Captain Willie

Capt. Willie grew up in Duxbury, MA and has fished the local waters his entire life acquiring a great appreciation for the sea. He has fished the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Mexico and Florida for various types of fish. However his true passion is angling the Massachusetts Bay waters. Capt. Willie is USCG licensed and certified in CPR and First Aid.

High Hook Charter Types

Stellwagen Bank

Six miles northeast of Provincetown, Massachusetts, stretching some 18.5 miles in length to end just seven miles southeast of Gloucester, Massachusetts, lies Stellwagen Bank. Because of its relative inshore location, 14.7 miles from the mainland, the bank is influenced more by the cold water from the Labrador current than the Gulf Stream. The twice daily tidal fluctuations moving east and west pound the bank’s edges with currents, diving the nutrient-rich bottom water to the surface in a process called upwelling. These nutrients are the fertilizers for the phytoplankton which provide the basis of the food chain that makes Stellwagen such a great location to fish.

Fishing with High Hook Charters you can catch a number of fish types ranging from Atlantic cod, bluefish, bluefin tuna, striped bass and other species. Whales are also very prominent around Stellwagen Bank during the fishing season including finback, minke, humpback, pilot and northern right whales so don’t be surprised when you see them all around.

Duxbury and Bay Fishing

The waters off of Duxbury and Surrounding bays are some of the richest fishing grounds on the Eastern coast. The Duxbury fishing scene has seen the presence of adult pogies inside the harbor and around outskirts of the channel. These provide us with great bait for catching the large stripers that can be found around a number of different spots within the bay and
around the channel.

However, you don’t need bait to catch a keeper in Duxbury due to some spectacular sand flats, where stripers can be sight-fished on calm, sunny days as they cruise over the ocean bottom in two to four feet of water. The best tactic is to drift, pole or anchor near a channel edge and wait for the fish to move out of the deep water and onto the flats, or vise versa. Also keep an eye out for birds working low over the water, as it may mean that bass and blues may be driving baitfish to the surface.

Striped Bass are a migratory fish arriving in mid-May and staying through October. High Hook Charters use a variety of techniques to catch Stripers and do our best to accommodate our passengers to what best suits them. We are allowed to keep 2 bass per person 28″ and up. Bluefish have no size limit and we can keep 10 fish per person. The most common way we fish for bass is with live-line Mackerel early in the season and then switch to live-line pogies throughout the rest of the season. If you are looking to catch a 30 lb Bass this is your best chance. Mackerel are migratory and arrive in the beginning of May and usually hang around through mid October.