Martha's Vineyard Early Summer: Bass, Blues, and Fluke on the Rise

This is Artificial Lure with your Martha’s Vineyard fishing report. We’re sitting on a classic early-summer pattern around the Island. Light southwest breeze this morning building a bit in the afternoon, with air temps riding the 60s into low 70s. Skies are mixed sun and clouds, decent visibility, and only a light chop on Vineyard Sound and along the South Shore by midday. Sunrise was right around a quarter past five, sunset will be just before eight-thirty, giving you a long, workable day on the water. Tides around Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs are running the usual semidiurnal swing: a pre-dawn high, dropping to a late-morning low, then filling again mid- to late afternoon. The key windows today are the last two hours of the outgoing and the first push of the flood. Fish that moving water and you’ll do fine. Striped bass are still the headliners. Schoolies are thick along State Beach and under the big bridge at Little Bridge, with enough keepers mixed in to keep it interesting. Night tides have produced some solid mid-30-inch fish on swimming plugs and soft plastics worked deep in the current. Out front, along Wasque and down around the Gut, the surf guys have been into bigger bass after dark on needlefish plugs and black bucktails tipped with pork rind. Bluefish have been spotty but improving. Boats working Middle Ground and the rips off East Chop have found small pods of choppers smashing topwater in the rip lines when the tide stands up. When they’re fussy, metal spoons and epoxy jigs are outfishing the big noisy plugs. Fluke and sea bass action has been steady in Vineyard Sound. Drifters bouncing bucktail jigs sweetened with squid strips are putting some nice keeper fluke in the box. Black sea bass are stacked on the rock piles and wrecky bits; squid and clams on high-low rigs are plenty, but small jigs with Gulp are taking the larger humpbacks. Best lures right now: - For bass: 5–7 inch soft plastics in sand eel colors, SP Minnows, mag darters, and slender needlefish at night. - For blues: pencil poppers, small metal spoons, and epoxy jigs. - For bottom fish: 1–3 oz bucktails with squid or Gulp, and standard bait rigs with squid strips or clam. If you’re fishing bait from shore, fresh squid, seaworms, and chunks of menhaden or mackerel are the top producers. Keep your hooks sharp and leaders a little heavier if you’re expecting blues. A couple of local hot spots to consider today: - **State Beach / Little Bridge**: Work the bridge and adjacent bars on the dropping tide for schoolie bass and the odd keeper, especially first light and after dark. - **Middle Ground shoal**: Excellent for drifting fluke and sea bass, with bluefish and bass pushing bait over the edges when the tide builds. That’s the word from the Island. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn