by Capt. Charles Crue
of Channel Edge Charters fishes the waters of the Merrimack River and can be reached at (978) 462-9212

Reel-Time Feature:

It is early March as I sit at my computer to write about last season’s fishing. It has been a very mild winter and I am beginning to feel anticipation for the new fishing season. The big question is, will the migrating fish arrive earlier than usual this year? Well that remains to be seen. I like to review the past season to help me prepare for the up coming one. I will share some of my experiences and observations for the 2001 season in the following paragraphs. Perhaps some of the history will help in planning for our next season.

Each fishing season is different. Nature is constantly changing the conditions that affect our sport. Winter storms change the underwater landscape of the Merrimack River area. Sandbars grow or disappear as a result of storm surges. Such changes often occur as a result of Nor’easters. Last year the sandbar at the north end of Plum Island was much smaller than the season before. It is a favorite place for wading fishermen and as the season began they found that they had a smaller sandbar on which to fish. As the season progressed, I found that the stripers did not hold around the down stream side of that sandbar on an outgoing tide as they had done in past seasons. Obviously the change in the underwater structure affected the bait fish distribution and, as a result, the feeding habits of the stripers changed. In the 2001 season, I had more consistent luck fishing the sandbar on the upstream side with an incoming tide.

Another factor affecting fishing is the weather. The 2001 season weather was much better than the previous year. It was warmer and drier. It made for pleasant fishing conditions.

The season began, as it usually does for me, in late April, with some exceptionally good shad fishing. Shad were abundant up the river in the Rocks Village area. Spin and fly fishermen did very well with flies and shad darts. Reports of five or six nice shad taken in a couple of hours of fishing were common. On May first I took my canoe and anchored beyond the casting range of the shore-based anglers to get into the action. I caught four nice American Shad on that first excursion. I used my favorite 8 W.T. fly rod, a 300 grain sinking line, and some colorful shad flies tied to imitate small shad darts.

My second day was exceptional. I caught and released more than 15 hard fighting shad in about three hours. It was a beautiful warm day and enjoyable in all respects. The shad fishing was still good the next day, but the weekend weather was not good, and after the weekend I decided to see if the stripers had arrived.

I began my striper search by driving to the north end of Plum Island. I walked the beach during outgoing tides, stopping to make casts with my 9 W.T. equipped with 300 Grain sinking line and an olive/white clouser. On May 9 I caught two schoolies. Someone told me that a 27-inch striper had been caught by a surfcaster earlier that morning. The next day I beached, and released four stripers. The fish had arrived! Over the next few days I witnessed spin fishermen catching big schoolies. Some of the stripers were keepers or close to it. Most were being taken on white jigs.

As the word got out about the arrival of migrating stripers the beach became crowded with bait fishermen. Since they use heavy sinkers and to hold the bait in the current, it makes it difficult to spin or fly fish without snagging their lines. For me it signalled that it was time to switch over to fishing frm my boat. I would soon take out my first charter clients and needed to check out various striper hot spots of past seasons.

I launched my boat on May 11 and did some fishing with mixed results over the next few days. A change in the weather, with cold temperatures, shut the striper action down. There was some schoolie action up the river where the water was warmer.

On May 15 I took my five-year-old grandson down to the boat slip at the marina. We fished with herring chunks while tied up to the dock around a slack tide. We brought four stripers to the boat. All were close to the 28-inch keeper limit. (Photo - Jacob) The season was in full swing!

In late May I began charter trips. My clients got into some really nice fish out on Joppa Flats. Some of them used light spinning tackle to catch some keeper size stripers. There were also days that the wind was fierce. On those occasions, we went up the river above the Route 1 bridge to make it more comfortable for fishing. We usually found an abundance of schoolies and now and then a big fish. During that time the best flies were white, olive/white and chartreuse/white clousers and deceivers.

As we progressed into June, we found very good striper action. The larger fish were definitely in the area. A big school of them moved around from day to day chasing bait including herring. Reviewing my fishing log, I noted that on June 5 I hosted a repeat client from Florida along with his friend. They caught and released about ten stripers in the area between the jetties. It was a couple of hours after the tide change from low to high. The fish ranged from 25 to 30-inches in length and gave strong fights. It was a very good morning. That was only the beginning of a spectacular month. The days from early June through the end of the month produced many excellent fishing trips with large stripers hitting both flies and light spinning lures. Many of the fish brought to the boat were well over the minimum keeper size. I am pleased to note that my clients were satisfied with only a photo prior to releasing the fish.

Toward the end of June more big stripers moved onto Joppa Flats on the high tide. Fishing Joppa is different from drifting the sandbars. The fish are very sensitive to boats and even the exposure of a fly line cast out over the water. But persistence and quietness would produce hits. It seems that the fish that hit out on Joppa are more ferocious. They are in shallow water, three or four feet, they make long runs and often break the surface giving the angler exciting action. I found that small deceivers with olive/white color worked best during that period. They hit the water softly and were less likely to spook the fish.

The sand bar off of the north end of Plum Island was good on an incoming tide. Stripers, Shad and an occasional bluefish could be taken on flies or sluggo jigs. White and olive/white colors worked well as the fish fed on sand eels and silversides.

One day in late June I had a free day and fished Joppa Flats on the high tide. The fishing was extraordinary. I caught and released stripers up to 32-inches. It was a quiet weekday morning. I saw big stripers rolling at the surface. I hooked, what turned out to be a 32-inch striper and saw several larger ones following as I fought that fish. It was an awesome site.

The fishing in July continued to be very good. My clients and I caught stripers everywhere. Depending on the tide, we fished Joppa Flats, the channel from buoy 15 down to buoy 11 and the sandbar off the north end of plum Island. We always found stripers, and sometimes we got into shad or bluefish.

August 3 I had a "captains day off" so I slept in a little late and then went out to enjoy the beautiful summer morning about 7 A.M.. Overnight the weather had changed after a cold front pushed through with thunder storms. The temperature had dropped from the low nineties into the sixties. The wind had shifted to come from the north and since this often means poor fishing around here, I was debating whether I should bother going fishing. The wind was not strong so I opted to go out for a while. On my way to the river mouth I met a friend just heading back in because he had to go to his work. He told me that there were stripers breaking the surface between the jetties.

When I got down there, I saw several boats with fishermen hooked up with decent sized stripers. They looked to be in the mid-to-high twenty-inch range. Within two or three casts using my 9 W.T. with a 300-grain sinking line, I hooked up with a nice 26-inch striper. The stripers were chasing bait to the surface. The bait was either sand eels or silver sides and judging by the commotion there were many stripers chasing them to the surface. The water was choppy and with small swells making fly casting difficult at times. But, I soon hooked fish that was obviously larger than the one I had just released. He took me into my backing as I started the engine to avoid the jetty rocks. Before I knew it my fly line was all out and it was well into the backing. The fish was about fifty yards from the boat and moving away. Holding the rod in one hand, I drove the boat with the other, to close the distance. As the fish tired, I caught glimpses of him could see that he was a big fish. I finally worked him to the side of the boat and managed to grab my Boga Grip. It is always a risky time when you are alone, trying to keep tension on the fly line, and simultaneously grab a good sized fish in a rocking boat. I had my moment of truth as the Boga Grip jaws closed over the lower lip of the fish and I hoisted a beautiful striper into the boat. A friend of mine, who had witnessed my battle from his boat, came over and took a couple of photographs. The striper was 41-inches long and weighed about 21 pounds. My fly was a small olive/white clouser about 2-inches long tied on a 2/0 hook.

The early season fishing was terrific! The Merrimack River estuary has to be one of the best striper locations on the Massachusetts coast. Tell me where you can leave the boat slip and get a striper within 5-minutes. There are no long boat rides to get to the fish. We, who live in the area and have fished here for many years know it, but the general fishing population thinks, they need to go to the Maine coast, Cape Ann or Cape Cod. I’ll match our fishing, for time spent on the water with any of them!

One Monday, I went out with one of my good repeat clients. We fished from Joppa Flats, down to the jetties. The fishing was slow but we caught some small schoolies. The most excitement occurred as we searching for stripers on Joppa Flats. When we approached the channel edge, near Buoy #15 we found a big school of stripers that were lazily tailing near the surface. I made a cast with my 8 W.T. with a clouser attached to a 15-pound leader. I had a sudden, very hard, hit as I was stripping. There was no slack in the line and the rod tip was pointed straight to the strike. It was a bad situation and the striper broke off immediately. Well, you can’t always win! We ended the morning catching small stripers near Buoy # 11.

I was away on vacation for a couple of weeks in August. When I returned, I found the fishing to be somewhat slow, especially for big stripers on flies. We did catch nice sized schoolies plus some hard fighting shad that were probably heading back out to the open ocean. I had reports of good bluefish action offshore.

There was an abundance of schoolie stripers in the American Yacht Club mooring area. They provided great fun on a 6 W.T. fly rod.

On one occasion, my clients and I had an unusual catch. It was, I think, a scorpion fish. It matches the one shown in my copy of the book "Anglers Guide to Fish." The only way to describe it is it was brow, red and yellow with strange skin flaps and it was ugly. My book said the spines are poisonous so I’m glad I handled it carefully. It hit a clouser that was fished close to the bottom. We were near where the party boats tie up at the north end of Plum Island.

The September fishing was sporadic. Stripers could be found but they were moving around a lot. In the river the fish were scattered. There was some good action up the river in the area of the Chain Bridge. Offshore storms created huge ocean swells that precluded any fishing along the ocean beaches.

There was some good fishing in late September with stripers and bluefish. They were gorging themselves on large sand eels just outside the river mouth. During this period the water around Newburyport was full of stripers. One morning on an out going tide my clients were into stripers right after we left the marina which is next to the USCG Station. Any fly that resembled a sand eel worked well.

One morning I took out a good client of mine that decided he would use his new LL Bean 6 W.T. fly rod to get good fighting action with schoolies. He did until a large fish hit his fly about ten feet from the boat at the upper end of Joppa Flats. The striper grabbed the fly and headed under the boat. The 6 W.T. rod was instantly bent around double. There was a loud snap as the rod shattered into several small pieces. My client tried to hold the fish using the remaining butt section but the fish won. It was a surprise to me that the rod snapped before the 12-pound leader broke.

In early October I hauled out my boat and took it in to be winterized. My wife and I went to the Cape for a few days. There I enjoyed some excellent striper fishing on the backside of Nauset Beach. Then the season was over for me and it was time to plan ahead including a great trout fishing trip to Utah and Wyoming.

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Don't miss Capt. Crue's weekly reports in the Merrimack River Section of the Metropolitan Boston FishWire

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