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Home › Waters › Massachusetts › Sippican Harbor
Estuary · Southeastern Massachusetts, Plymouth County, the harbor at Marion on the north shore of Buzzards Bay · Massachusetts

Sippican Harbor Fishing Guides

A sheltered Buzzards Bay harbor at Marion with eelgrass flats, rock ledge and a strong early summer striped bass and tautog fishery within easy reach of shore and small boats.

A dock reaching out over wide brackish water at dusk
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

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About the Sippican Harbor

Sippican Harbor is one of the deep notches cut into the north shore of Buzzards Bay, and it is a genuinely good piece of fishing water rather than simply a pretty anchorage. The harbor runs north from the bay past Marion village and narrows into a marsh fringed cove at its head. The gauge near the Marion golf club reads a full water quality suite including temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen, which is unusually rich data for a small New England harbor and reflects the long running monitoring effort in this corner of the bay.

What makes the harbor fish well is the mix of bottom types packed into a small area. Eelgrass beds cover much of the shallow middle harbor and hold juvenile fish and shrimp through the warm months. Rock ledge and glacial boulder run along both shores and out toward the harbor mouth, which is where tautog and black sea bass set up. Sand and mud fill the deeper channel. A tide moving over that combination pushes bait against predictable edges, and the striped bass work those edges hard at dawn and dusk.

The season is front loaded. Striped bass arrive in May and the harbor fishes very well through June and into July, when menhaden schools often stack in the upper harbor and draw larger fish. Bluefish follow. Tautog fishing is strongest in the spring and again in the fall over the ledges. Late summer brings the chance of bonito and false albacore near the harbor mouth and out along the bay shore, which is what draws fly anglers to this stretch of coast.

Marion is a small town and access is correspondingly modest but real, with a town landing, a launch ramp and a good deal of walkable shoreline. Buzzards Bay itself opens immediately to the south, and the guide fleet working out of Mattapoisett and Wareham covers this water regularly.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Sippican Harbor.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Access

Marion - the village on the harbor, with a town landing, ramp and local services.
Mattapoisett - the neighboring harbor town west, with guides, tackle and lodging.
Wareham - the larger town at the head of the bay, with full services.
Silvershell Beach - town beach with shoreline access on the harbor.
Buttermilk Bay and the Cape Cod Canal - additional fishing waters a short drive east.
Buzzards Bay - the open bay immediately south, reached in minutes by boat.
Bird Island - a rocky islet off the harbor mouth with ledge structure nearby.

Seasons

Spring: striped bass arrive in May and tautog move onto the ledges as water climbs through the fifties.
Summer: menhaden schools draw large bass into the harbor in June and July, with bonito and albacore possible by August.
Fall: a strong second tautog season and hard feeding bass and bluefish as bait leaves the harbor.
Winter: the harbor effectively closes down, with fish moved offshore and no meaningful cold water fishery.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Sippican Harbor?

Anglers target Atlantic Menhaden, Black Sea Bass, Bluefish, Bonito, False Albacore, Northern Puffer, Scup, Striped Bass, Summer Flounder, Tautog, Winter Flounder on the Sippican Harbor in Massachusetts.

Where can you access the Sippican Harbor?

Marion - the village on the harbor, with a town landing, ramp and local services. Mattapoisett - the neighboring harbor town west, with guides, tackle and lodging. Wareham - the larger town at the head of the bay, with full services. Silvershell Beach - town beach with shoreline access on the harbor. Buttermilk Bay and the Cape Cod Canal - additional fishing waters a short drive east. Buzzards Bay - the open bay immediately south, reached in minutes by boat. Bird Island - a rocky islet off the harbor mouth with ledge structure nearby.

When is the best time to fish the Sippican Harbor?

Spring: striped bass arrive in May and tautog move onto the ledges as water climbs through the fifties. Summer: menhaden schools draw large bass into the harbor in June and July, with bonito and albacore possible by August. Fall: a strong second tautog season and hard feeding bass and bluefish as bait leaves the harbor. Winter: the harbor effectively closes down, with fish moved offshore and no meaningful cold water fishery.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Sippican Harbor?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Massachusetts agency site: https://www.mass.gov/orgs/division-of-marine-fisheries