Tautog fishing in Rhode Island and Cape Cod

In Rhode Island and Cape Cod, tautog peak May and October–November and are around April–December, according to Fish Scouter's month-by-month season calendar. October: The fall blackfish bite on the Rhode Island breakwaters, Buzzards Bay rocks and the Vineyard.

1. JanuaryNot here
2. FebruaryNot here
3. MarchNot here
4. AprilArrivingSpring season opens April 1 in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts — shallow rocks and breakwaters warm first.
5. MayPeakThe striper run fills in; scup and sea bass arrive. Herring runs and the Canal for stripers; mackerel on sabikis for live bait; spawning sea bass on the shallow rocks; scup fill the piers.
6. JuneAround
7. JulyAround
8. AugustAround
9. SeptemberArriving
10. OctoberPeakThe fall blackfish bite on the Rhode Island breakwaters, Buzzards Bay rocks and the Vineyard.
11. NovemberPeakBig blackfish; the last stripers leave. Tog on the deeper rocks; last stripers off the Rhode Island beaches; winter cod trips begin.
12. DecemberLeavingBig fish go deep and slow; the last of them on the offshore rocks.

Rhode Island's rocky south coast and salt ponds, Narragansett Bay, Block Island, Buzzards Bay and the Elizabeth Islands, Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds with their shoals and rips, the Cape Cod Canal, Cape Cod Bay's sand flats, and the Monomoy rips and outer Cape beaches; offshore Coxes Ledge and the southern New England canyons (Block, Atlantis, Veatch).

Fish Scouter charts 350 wreck, 4 artificial reef spots in the Southern New England map area — the kinds tautog hold on.

• Fiddler crabsA #1 hook through the back corner of the shell, dropped tight to the piling — the sheepshead bait.
• Blue crabsWhole and small for permit and tarpon; halved or quartered on the bottom for black drum, redfish and cobia.

• Leader30–60 lb fluorocarbon
• Hook2/0–7/0
• Braid30–65 lb

Feeds in 44–72°F water, best at 50–64°F.

All about tautog · Southern New England, the whole year