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2 weeks ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Over the course of a season, Northeast captains catch bluefin from the edge of the continental shelf 70-plus miles offshore to just off the beach, in clear view of surfcasters. They catch them by trolling, jigging, casting topwaters, and drifting live bait. By the time the last captain washes down the boat after his final trip of the year, nine months will have passed since the first captain broke the inlet on an initial exploratory trip of the season.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
My first cast with a Rebel Jumpin’ Minnow was a poor, tumbling mess. Yet, somehow, it splashed down in the strike zone off the starboard side of the bow and “jumped” only when a schoolie striper tail-whacked it two feet into the air as if to say, “That’s not what we’re eating this morning, stupid.”It was the first weekend of May—a prime time to explore the many nooks and crannies of northern Buzzards Bay.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Like many surfcasters, Brian Connor has been doling out Benjamins to his favorite plug builders for years. However, the born-and-raised Long Islander is a craftsman himself. Rather than whittle away his spending money on custom-made striper baits, he instead turned to his own lathe to restock the plug bag in 2019. Since then, his hobby has blossomed into his profession, which led him to start Hamlet Woodcraft.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
April is here, marking the start of spring tautog season throughout New England. The water is a bit chilly for early-spring togging, but our neighbors in Rhode Island are already picking away at some small fish in shallow water. Like striper fishing, the tog bite hits a sweet spot when water temperatures approach (or reach) 50 degrees.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
As we close out another week at the OTW office, the refrigerator has been a bit of a revolving door. Recently, our staff has taste-tested Rockport Brewing’s Jetty Juice and Pescato—two equally refreshing, locally-made brews with entirely different flavor profiles. This week, we’re trying out Hog Island’s White Shark Wheat—a light American wheat ale that has less of a “bite” than one would expect.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Growing up on Cape Cod, Taf Schaefer lived just a stone’s throw from the marshes and feeder creeks of Nantucket Sound. Annual runs of river herring brought striped bass and ospreys to the wetlands snaking through her neighborhood each spring.Those early interactions with local wildlife and marine life put her on course to a conservation-focused career in art, with emphasis in fashion design.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Surf fishermen are no strangers to interactions with seals. Seals attacking hooked fish is an increasingly regular occurrence at Montauk, Nantucket, and the outer beaches of Cape Cod. This makes them extremely unpopular among anglers. Conflicts between seals and fishermen go back over a century, when there was actually a bounty on the heads of the gray seals. Under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the grey seal population has grown exponentially, especially around Cape Cod.
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Mar 3, 2025 | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
There’s a term my friend and co-worker, Adam Eldridge, uses for the cold, wet, and dreary days associated with early March: he calls it “Farch,” which is a combination of February and March conditions that sounds as ugly as it looks. In Farch, air temperatures teeter between frigid and frighteningly mild, storms frequently roll through, and overcast skies dominate the forecast for weeks at a time.
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Feb 28, 2025 | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Jetties, by design, are intended to inhibit beach erosion or shelter marinas. But these man-made, multi-purpose structures are much more than just a protective pile of rocks. Jetties are special places where recreational fishermen—often accompanied by coolers full of cold beer and the day’s catch—gather for long hours in pursuit of acclaimed gamefish, like striped bass, bluefish, Spanish mackerel and tautog.
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Feb 25, 2025 | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Last week, the Instagram algorithm served me a video from a page called @gothamwhale, which showed dolphins in the East River, gleefully leaping and swimming about without a care in the world. Like most people would be, I was surprised and slightly concerned. Are they supposed to be here in New York City? Is there ample forage for them to survive through the cold winter months? That’s when I remembered a separate video that made rounds on the interwebs just two years ago.
