CAPE ANN BEACHES
Cape Ann’s beaches and boulders offer plenty of options for late-season fall stripers. On the Ipswich Bay side, the productive Cranes Beach Reservation at the end of Argilla Road in Ipswich is good at night after the swimming crowd leaves. Beach fishermen can purchase an inexpensive fisherman’s sticker from the Ipswich town office that permits overnight parking from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. outside the park gates, but day fishermen are required to pay the normal daily entrance fee for the park.

Walking down the utility road to the back side of the beach puts anglers into the productive water between Cranes and Hog islands. Concentrate on the dropoffs, the various rockpiles and any rips that occur. Normally, the low and rising tides are the most productive.

Another Ipswich destination down Jeffries Neck Road is Pavilion Beach between Great Neck and Little Neck. Pavilion Beach has a small parking area. The left side can be productive on a falling tide. From the beach, anglers may walk down a paved road to Great Neck Beach, where lower tides show mussel beds and grass plots that are good targets.

Also on Cape Ann, Halibut Point has a trail around the rocks from the Halibut State Park parking area that allows access to normally dependable bluefish spots that also hold striped bass. This is a daytime fishery because the park closes at sunset. Pick a day when the surf is boiling and walk around the rocks, tossing lures into any good-looking pockets. Bass will be found near the rocks.

WOLLASTON BEACH
In south Boston along Quincy Shore Drive, the long Wollaston Beach Reservation is a good year-round hotspot. Use bait or cast soft-plastics, jigs or small plugs on spinning gear. Fly-casters love Black’s Creek Cove at the south end of the beach, where they can wade out hundreds of yards on an outgoing tide and still be in fishable water. Fish the cove all the way out to the dropoff beyond the big offshore sandbar.

CAPE COD CANAL
Everyone has heard of Cape Cod Canal, but fishing the canal and its rocky riprap banks and its swift tidal flow is challenging.

There’s a large difference between the height and timing of the tides in Cape Cod Bay (about nine feet) and Buzzards Bay (about four feet). This creates five-knot currents at times within the canal.

Fishing in such fast current is difficult for even the most expert anglers. A key to success is concentrating fishing activity during the slack water periods (at high and low tide) that occur four daily times on most days. Times for slack water are available from local tackle shops or the Web (search “Cape Cod Canal Tides”).

Fishing is best for 1 1/2 hours during each tide turn: the last half hour of the current’s slowing in one direction, the dead slack period and the first half hour of the current speeding up in the other direction.

July action can be good over the entire canal. The point off Bell Road at the West End of the canal is one of the hardest-fished areas, due to easy access, plenty of parking, toilet facilities and plenty of room for fishermen.

When squid appear in the canal, usually late July or August, the flat behind this point can be the scene of unbelievable action on very big bass. The canal is not the place for light tackle.