2026 MFCC Podcast 21 - Fluke Versus Cancer Recap and Bonito Blitz

This podcast aired on July 26th on the MyFishingCapeCod.com website.

Cape Cod fishing hit a rare stretch this past weekend where two completely different styles of fishing both turned on. Monomoy Tackle founder and owner Eddy Kooyomjian had a front row seat for all the action and was kind enough to provide us with a fresh in-depth report! 

Eddy taped this weekend's podcast report fresh off a Friday fluke trip on the outer shoals and a Saturday morning bonito run that produced the most solid funny fish intel the podcast has gotten all season. Between the two days, Eddy fished calm, glassy conditions on Friday and a fast-moving, bird-driven blitz on Saturday, coming home with a full rundown of where the fish are holding and exactly what is putting them in the boat.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to another edition of the 515 Fox Podcast presented by Keep and Islands, Mr. Beach, and the Orcade Car Watch. I'm your host, Kevin Collins, back with you for another late July 5th edition of the pod. We're going to be public today, which means this podcast will be available to everybody. Whether you're catching us on Spotify, iTunes, or plenty of the other podcast platforms we're available on. We thank you for tuning in. We're going to be joined in just a moment by Eddie Kuyunian, the founder of Monomoy Tackle. We'll get a great fluke report from Eddie as well as some bonito reports from Ed as well, who's been out there fishing up a storm this weekend. We're going to be public-facing today with this podcast, which means it's available to everybody. We thank you for stopping by and checking us out, maybe on iTunes or Spotify, and we sure hope you consider leaving us a five-star review, maybe a couple kind words, and your review would go a long way for us, and we sure do appreciate those of you that have taken the time to do so already. I do want to remind you if you're not yet a My Fifth Cape Cod member, we do reserve some of these podcasts and blog posts, and definitely all the information in the My Fifth Kip Cod forum in terms of reports. We reserve all that information for members only. So if you're interested in this type of information that you're going to get on the podcast today, you want to learn more about these reports, head on over to my15capecod.com and it's there where you can give one of our several membership options a try. Now with our intro out of the way, it's time to welcome in today's featured guest. Well, as promised, our featured guest on this edition of the My Fifthing Cape Cod podcast is our great friend Eddie Kuyunjian, the proud founder and owner of Monomoy Tackle. Eddie, it's a pleasure to welcome you back to the show for our July visit. And man, what a beautiful weekend here on Cape Cod.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Hey Kevin, how are you doing? MSCC members, hope all's well. Kevin, absolutely it's beautiful weather right now following the storms. And uh I have to say the fishing, the fishing is not disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

So you got a chance to go out a couple of times in the last, let's say, 36 hours. So we're gonna get really fresh intel from you, Ed, today, which I think is great for everybody that is a patron of the podcast. I want to go back to yesterday. We'll start chronologically. So this is Friday the 24th, and you and your uh cousin Bruno, Bruno Demir, executed the giveaway trip for the 2026 Fluke versus Cancer Fundraiser, which I just want to mention off the top raised over $5,400. Uh the goal was $5,000. We surpassed that goal. So a huge thank you to everybody out there in my fishing kit cod nation.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you to all the members that that donated that participated. Uh when Bruno and I were picking names and we have access to the list in order to pick, and there's a lot of people, repeat donors, some past participants who who donated again, uh, some uh obviously fresh faces and new folks as well. It's just great to see and a tremendous turnout. Uh and yeah, we we picked some names. The person that came with me was was Adam Gamble. Uh I know Jane Jane Simpson uh was out on Bruno's boat, and uh it was uh it was a really good trip.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So let's dive into that trip a little bit. You had a guest angler and Adam joining you. What was the bite like out there, Ed? And give us a taste of what the conditions were like and kind of how far you were out.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah, I I'm actually gonna, if you don't mind, I'm gonna start the the evening priors. Thursday night, I'm I'm kind of running around getting the boat set up, checking all the rods, the reels, the rigs, everything. And it's it's close to and and as you know, Kevin, I've been texting you like I actually had some work done on my boat during the week. So I'm I'm I I get just freshly come back, and it's like right around midnight. And uh I tell the wife, I said, you know, I said I'm gonna go down and grab some squid. And she looked at me, she goes, like, really? I go, Yeah. I went down to my little spot, the pier with uh with the dog, and I I jigged up some squid, some fresh when when people talk about you know, fresh beta's best. This was this was as fresh as it gets, this squid that was uh brought along on the trip. So in about a half hour, I I think I managed enough squid for the day and and went back home and and got got a nap in before the trip. So I'll I'll sort of set the scene with how kind of um important and how detailed uh this has to be, like just from that. And the trip itself, you know, we met up at s at at six at Sakwatucket. My my brother Mark made the drive down, and Adam and I uh boarded and and and went out to Monemoy. And you know, the trip, like we always we always start the trip with kind of making a stop at Monimoy just to see what's out there, right? It's always worth it to stop and just gather and maybe do some striper fishing. And and it was really interesting, like the birds were behaving a bit differently than I'm you than I'm usually seeing, and and they were kind of moving quickly and diving in small groups and flashes in the water, right? And you're like, ooh, that's a little different. And I I actually told the guys, I said, I think there's bonito around now, and we we tried our hand at that for I'd say 20 minutes. We we we got close enough, we we took some casts in with some of the usual uh lures and and uh you know we we didn't we didn't uh we didn't hook up that day, but I obviously made a mental note. But then we we made our way out uh to the outer shoals about six, seven miles from the point. We we headed east. Uh Bruno was already there when when we arrived, um he'd set up on a drift. It was a beautiful weather day, uh just absolutely perfect. Um I was a little nervous whether the water would be moving because it were kind of not we're we're just in the middle of the moon cycle, maybe just beyond the middle. And it was a really beautiful day. And and you know, sometimes the really pick picture perfect bluebird days make me nervous about fishing because it's it's almost too nice to fish. But honestly, like all those fears went away quickly. Um I set Adam up with a popcorn rig, which you're familiar with from the trip last year. It was actually the the same rig. Uh he'd set up with a pink, pink and white skirted uh popcorn setup, and almost immediately he he hooked up twice and and and pulled in some some either just barely legal or or just under fluke that we threw back, but it ended up being a really, really good sign for what the day was going to be like.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So moving through the day, I saw some great photos that you were able to send me you of yourself and with Adam. Uh, I know you put, I think some of them uh even up on the MFCC forum. I might have seen a few. So it looks like at some point the bite really turned on. It looked like you had fish up into the low 20s, maybe 22, 23 inches.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

We did. We did, Kevin. I the bite was fairly consistent most of the day, and even like through the tide and and into the turn. We we managed to dial in the the drift. Um where where we were drifting, there's uh a variety of depths, as as you know, that you can go from anywhere from 20 to 50, and and the key is to kind of find where those larger fish might be because they are in like small groups. And there was a couple instances in the drift where uh we dropped down, and and yeah, Adam Adam uh managed the first of all, Adam limited out himself. Like he could have easily, if he was solo, he would have caught his own limit alone. Um but then you know, on a couple times he did manage a 19, he did get a 22, which you know, my my brother Mark being as competitive as he is, he he he managed a 23, uh, which which I you know thought was pretty I I got a chuckle out of that that uh he he refused to be outdone in this case. Uh but yeah, there was some nice, nice fat, really healthy healthy fluke over the rail, and they were coughing up squids, sand deals, uh you know, they they it was it it very much looked like they were they were had you know had the feedback on.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, that's gotta be great to see. And it's really cool for you to see as well when they do have the feedback on, what exactly they're feeding on. Probably helps you a little bit with product design, I would imagine, Ed.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah, it does. And and I mean the popcorns really do imitate that smaller forage like the sand eels that they that they feed on, they kind of pop up off the ground and and ambush a small jig like that. And and Adam, I I have to say, like he was he he was moving his his jig along the bottom with a certain tempo and a certain frequency that I I think really worked for him all day. Um my brother at some point and I we both switched over to the larger spoon, the five-inch spoon, once we got into the drift of like 1.8 to 2.5 miles an hour. And um that larger spoon, like some of these fluke had a whole squid in them. So that that swap over, that that spoon and that squid skirt really do imitate that squid well. So it was a lot. I both both types of rigs worked. Um the jigs produced as well. There was a lot, quite a few fish taken on the on the Squidetto jigs, but all in all, it was it was a fantastic day. You couldn't ask for anything better uh for a trip like that where we're trying to take Adam, who admittedly by his own admission was not a huge fluke fisherman, but uh you know, we we showed him a very good time. And as you know, Kevin, like I'm big personally on this whole thing with fluke fishing where you turn the boat off, it's quiet, there's the music is in the background, classic vinyl, and and you you're just drifting along with these baits and and telling stories, telling jokes. And I I just find I to it just speaks to me as a form of fishing. And you know, and and Adam said at the end, he's like, I I really didn't think that fluke fishing was like this, and that it it can be really interesting and technical in terms of where you set up and what you use. And uh, you know, I I found that to be some really rewarding feedback.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

It sounds like you guys just had a great trip all around, and and you and brother Mark made a another friend for life, which I know is a huge part of what fluke versus cancer is all about. The camaraderie, right, of the the crew from year to year is really something special.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Yeah, it is. And and afterwards, you know, we invited Adam back to our cottage to to clean the catch and to kind of you know freshen up after being out all day. And uh, you know, he got to see the the sort of back end of the operation, you might say, like, you know, with with the family, the dog, and all of us just kind of filleting the fish together and cleaning up, washing the boat down, and then we we sent him home with a pile of fluke fillets. And uh yeah, it's it's just really, really cool to add to add someone to that brotherhood. And and and I told him, I said, you know, you ever go out, you ever go out fluking, you want a uh, you know, you want a buddy boat or or or a friend, or you know, you need advice, like we're we're here for you. And and I think he took that to heart.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Now moving into today, the day that we're actually taping on Saturday, another beautiful Cape Cod day on the 25th. You went out this morning, got some great videos early this morning of you, and the breaking news to me were it was it looks like the bones are here in earnest finally.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Yeah, it was it was kind of an interesting evening after fluke versus cancer. Like I got Jack, my son, kind of tugging at my shirt. He's like, Can we go tomorrow? Can we go tomorrow? And I looked at him and I said, Yeah, I said, We'll give it a try, because he's he's uh he's a uh funny fish fanatic. And um it was it was it he got up early, had I think he beat me up and and we got out and my daughter came with us as well, Maggie. Um so we we went out and they were in the same areas where we I had seen evidence of them the day before. The one difference was there was way more boats out there today. You know, it was kind of a parking lot parked out there at Monomoy uh anyway. But obviously these these fast moving birds and and clusters of birds had drawn everyone's attention. We set up with with the small peanut uh resin-coated jigs. I I had um a talon on my light tackle setup. We were not gonna be able to troll, like that was not gonna happen with the crowd that was there. So we we tried to stay in a place where we thought the birds may pop up, and I mean, sure enough, we were lucky enough where the we had the engine off. A fee popped up kind of off the stern of the boat, and all all three of us were able to make a few casts in. And and um I had a pink uh electric chicken colored talon on that that a fish took and and and ripped, you know, line off and tore away. When I got it to the boat, we netted it, and it it just um you know threw up its its uh breakfast, so to speak. And the bait, uh I was really, really surprised by the bait that it had uh been feeding on. It instead of the tiny little micro baits that you kind of see early in the funny fish season, these bonito apparently have been feeding on these three to four or five-inch herring and sand eels. So um, I mean, no wonder it was kind of it it wasn't very picky about taking a four-inch uh lure, a four-inch plug. So we reset after that fish. I actually harvested that fish for for lunch today. We set up again and um I switched colors because I'd I'd seen the herring, and I switched over to the blue-green uh you know, Bruno color that my cousin, you know, the the Bruno really likes to use, so I named it after him. So I set up with that and I managed to hook another fish, a couple fish actually, with that lure, and brought one more to the boat. Um my son switched over to a slim thinger profile resin jig instead of the peanut. Um he really wanted to cast and get one on his own casting. Um he did he did hook up once. Unfortunately, we couldn't get that fish to the boat, but you know, now he's sort of got that adrenaline where, you know, if I if I'm not careful, he'll probably want to go out again this weekend. But uh, you know, we'll we'll see about that. But uh all in all, like it was a really great morning, and and I'm really, really uh energized to see the bonito in in this kind of number uh this this early.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I just want to ask you as we're kind of wrapping things up on the Benito, just because that's kind of a little bit of breaking news here. I know there's some people that have gotten into them sporadic, but what you saw today and what you fished and experienced, definitely the most solid report that we've at least had on our show um of Benito Intel. So I just think uh it would make sense to ask you, especially as the owner and operator of Monomoy Tackle, just some general tips for Benito for folks that may want to get out there this weekend or early next week, give it a try. And some of your products, Ed, I'm sure are really obviously like we just spoke about, geared toward Benito, and maybe just some tips on on maybe what to look at on the website and how to fish them.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

I I as I mentioned a moment ago, this time of year, early season, like the bait typically is small as these microbaits, as these young of year kind of get flushed out of the inlets and estuaries. Um and for that you're really looking at these the smallest metals. Like I have a lure called the heavy bait jig, which is a one ounce and a one and a third ounce. They're just straight metals. They're the smallest baits that that you can get with that kind of weight. Um, and then there's the resin-coated uh peanut shape, which is um kind of I'll say like what I've what what the the shop has kind of been known for over the years, are those peanut shaped jigs. Those those can be highly successful. I what what was successful today with the size of the bait they were feeding on, these talons, the talons are very versatile because you can cast them like you would a soft plastic, but these are subsurface, it has a lip on it, it's not it's it's sinking on its own anyway. It's a sinking jerk bait. With the with the weight transfer system in them, you can really burn them on a retrieve and they're gonna stay in the water, they're not gonna pop up. They're they're very, very effective in conditions like today where the the the baits are larger, um, the the bait fish are larger. The other thing with the town is you can troll them at high speeds, which high speed trolling for Benito, I think is a pretty underrated way to catch them. The the requirement, of course, is that you have more room, you know, you have more space. It's not cool to troll through a group of people casting at breaking fish. Like you, you know, you have to have some space to do it. Um but those those three types of products, the heavy metal jig, the peanut, and then the talon are definitely you know three that I that that I always use. Um there's another resin-coated jig called the Slim Profile, which is a really good uh sand deal kind of shape. It's a it's a much thinner shape or that than the peanut. Um it's an elongated bait with a with a single hook on it. Um those those can also be thrown. And and and I do have soft plastics as well. There's there's a there's a six-inch soft plastic that that it is a little bit larger of a profile, uh, but you can throw those weedless as well. I I think one of the the things to that everybody I think uh I'll say at times struggles with with these funny fish is the cracking of the code and understanding what are they feeding on, are they picky, what color? You know, we all know that there are days when they won't take anything, and you you have to be incredibly effective and precise in your presentation, in your details, in your knots. So I fortunately for me, today wasn't one of those days. Like it didn't feel like they were picky, they they were eating these larger baits, but you know, everybody uh who funny fish who fishes for these species um you know is gonna encounter those days where they are picky, and that's why these other different lures that are offered, these uh and and the details that you use uh become really important.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

All right, Ed. That's a ton of great information. I mean, folks are gonna have to let that marinate in the old brain this weekend. But I mean that what a great report. I think we can safely say our best report on the MFCC podcast this year together, I would wager to guess.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Well, it was definitely the most condensed. I mean, to go from the relaxation of fluke fishing with fluke versus cancer to going into the sort of um you know a little bit of run and gun and the adrenaline of the bonito, that's a lot. It was a lot for me to process uh today, but you know, hopefully, hopefully they stick around. I mean, I I I'll just kind of conclude with this that I I truly hope that these bonitos are in in these numbers and that they stick around like they have the last couple years. You know, I it makes me want to get out there as often as I can. I I love fishing for them. They're a tremendous fish, they're a tremendous fish for the table. Um, if you bleed them right away and and kind of process them quickly, they're they're incredible table fare. So, yeah, I mean, tight lines to everybody. I I really hope this helps some people out.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

My thanks to Eddie Kuyumjian, the founder and owner of Monomoy Tackle, for joining us on this edition of the My Fishing Cape Cod podcast. Always great to hear what Ed has been up to, and man, some great success out on the fluke grounds. The fluke versus cancer trip for 2026 is in the book. Sounds like it was a tremendous success for all involved, and most importantly, the fundraiser raised over $5,400 for Boston Children's Hospital's pediatric cancer research program. So a big hearty thank you to all of you out there in the 515 Kit Cod community that were able to donate. That's gonna put the wraps on this edition of the 515 Kit Cod podcast presented by Keep and Islands, Mr. Beachy, and the old Kid Card. For my guest, Eddie Kingkin of Monomoy Tackle, I'm your host, Kevin Collins, signing off to we chat again in a few short days.