Rick Wilsterman passed me on to my friend Bob Lewis at 5:45 this morning.  Bob took me fishing today and then to my gig for the Cape Cod Trout Unlimited Club tonight.  Tomorrow he’ll take me to spend a full day with the Cape Cod Fly Rodders then to the airport for home on Friday.  Bob has hooked me up with speaking gigs for three visits here to Cape Cod and also become a great fishing friend.

The most unique fact about Bob is that he loves fishing the saltwater of the Cape so much that he’s never caught a trout in his life.  That’s a mind blowing stat and Bob may in fact be my only friend that hasn’t caught a trout.  It’s pretty cool in an odd way.  At sunrise Bob and I were leaving Cotuit Bay in his boat to search for false albacore and perhaps a nice striped bass.

The wind was still blowing hard.  Bob’s boat is bigger than Ricks and traveling big waves place to place looking for fish wasn’t an issue.  You just had to hang on and go.  That’s exactly what we did.  We worked our way west checking all Bob’s regular false albacore haunts all the way to Chatham, but not a fish was stirring.

Once at Chatham we were on familiar waters for me.  Rick and I fished here the last three days.  Due to the wind Rick and I were limited as for hitting the rips for stripers but in Bob’s boat it wasn’t a problem and we bounced our way along the Monomoy Flats and past the lighthouse and went a few miles out to sea.

We hit slack tide perfect and Bob had me drop a Clouser down on top a 20 foot deep sandbar.  The target fish was a fluke (summer flounder).  Bobs caught a lot of them here over the years on bait and jigs.  It took me a minute to reach bottom but once there I hooked up quick only it wasn’t a fluke.  We found some deep running false albacore and I’d pick up two of the handsome little tunas before the tidal currents started up again.

Once the tidal currents started it became impossible for me to get a fly down deep again.  Big rips began to form and normally these are excellent for big striped bass.  Bob held the boat and I fished several of the rips with Clousers, Sand Eel patterns and poppers but not a single fish showed.  It appeared our two albies was going to be it for the day.

As I stripped my fly through the rips I could see the area where Rick and I looked for great whites yesterday.  Above, that same Cessna flew along.  About then I saw something rolling in the beach wave.  There were seagulls waiting to reach it.  It was a freshly killed seal.

I’d told Bob about looking for great whites yesterday.  Bob laughed and said in all his years on the water he’d never seen one.  “Yeah they’re here but you just never see them”, he said.  But he noticed how intrigued I was and offered to drive us over for a look.

Our side trip from fishing would end up being a life changing event.  We headed for the freshly killed seal and sure enough there was another fishing boat with the same idea.  And they started pointing.  Bob sped over and there it was – a great white shark about 12 feet!  “Holy crap!” I shouted while standing high on the bow.

I can’t begin to explain the feeling.  After a lifetime of only knowing great white sharks from Jaws and Shark Week on TV – this face to face encounter with the oceans most intimidating apex predator was incredible.  Bob was equally as excited and I don’t think either of us could believe what we were seeing!

This particular shark let us follow it for about five minutes then it disappeared into the deep.  But we weren’t alone for long.  Within minutes a larger specimen appeared under the boat and headed towards the beach.  This fish was nearly 15 feet long and was hot to trot to find a seal.  And there were a few seals on the beach.

The seals weren’t stupid however.  Their dead friend was now washed up on the beach shredded to pieces.  Somehow it had escaped but its wounds were too severe to survive.  A couple times a seal came down waters edge but the shark knew and would swim over.  There were a couple close calls but we did not see a kill.  It was amazing how close to shore this massive shark would swim.  At times he was less than five feet off the beach edge!

Bob and I enjoyed the sharks for nearly an hour.  A third showed up as we were leaving.  I’ll say two things:  First, this was my best fishing day of the year and we hardly caught any fish.  Seeing my first great white sharks was a life long dream.  Second, don’t fall overboard!

It was about an hour boat ride back to Cotuit Harbor.  Bob and I looked for fish all the way but they truly were hiding today.  The good part however was that the wind has finally died and the boat ride was pleasant.  We pulled off the water around 4 PM and quickly turned around and headed to my event.

Tonight, I delivered “The Worlds Best Trout Destinations” to a group of about 25 Trout Unlimited Members.  It was their first in person event since the start of Covid nearly two years ago.  It was a great time for all, including myself.  It feels great to be back in front of a live audience.  In fact, it was so nice that I’d like to remind everyone that you can hire me to speak at your club as well.  Just Contact me and we’ll get it set up.

Tomorrow I’ll teach a full day of seminars to Cape Cod Fly Rodders.  We’ll begin the day with beach fishing.  Without the big wind it should be a pleasant day with the folks.  I’m really looking forward to it.  This has been a great trip!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing