Boston
Metropolitan
Region

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

Labor Day is upon us, and that means we can expect one brief flurry of activity on the water and the beaches this weekend before we get them back until Memorial Day. The bathers and the jetskiers will be packing it in, the summer shore rentals on Plum Island, Scituate and Plymouth will end and things will get back to a saner, more manageable pace.

That said, you can still expect to see a few bozos out there this weekend running and gunning after the roving schools of bluefish that have been blitzing up and down the coast for the past couple weeks. As Mike Wilmerding of Firefly Outfitters mentioned this week, the blitzing blues aren't like the schoolies we had earlier. They're a whole bunch more skittish so try to break off from the crowds and find your own school to work. You'll be a lot happier and you'll catch more fish if you can approach slowly and manage to drift up to them.

As with any holiday, take a little extra care this weekend. Don't become a statistic.

Congratulations go out to Adam Albino who released a 42" striper in Boston Harbor last night that was estimated at 30-35 lb. It's his biggest fish on a fly yet. He got the fish while fishing with Rocky Raccucia on Hot Rod during a huge blitz outside Hingham. Read his post on the new Reel-Time BBS (it's being tested now)

Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...

Tight Lines!

Mark Cahill

Guidelines - Your chance to question the pros. Send your questions to brodgers@ddtcom.com.

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Boston Metro Regions

Boston Harbor

At Old Salt Outfitters in Hingham, Brian McNeill's seen some of the best fishing of the season in the past two days. "I've got to go on record that today and yesterday have held the most fish that I've seen in the harbor. Maybe not the biggest fish (although Adam Albino might disagree). There were fish from our dock all the way past the Yacht Club, by Slate Island, Grape Island, with schools throughout and even a bigger school right off the north side of Bumpkin Island. You could throw anything at them. BUT, we didn't catch as many as you'd expect as there was almost too much bait." We have herring up to 6", mixed with small silversides no more than an inch, outside there are silversides in the 2" range. We found fish on the north side of Peddocks and they were all coughing up baby pogies.

"I took a photo this morning on the back side of Peddocks. We'd started to see some birds circling and a few fish swirling. Didn't think it was anything great, but we were catching fish. We were in 4-6' of water. Two guys in a canoe pulled up and started to fish from shore. We were about 90' away. All of a sudden the whole area erupted with blues and bass. Those guys actually had to take a couple steps back because they were right in the fish. All three fish we caught in that momentary blitz were 25-27"."

The olive Clouser was the hot fly.

Mike Wilmerding of Firefly Outfitters in Boston reports that "Monday and Tuesday were very windy, but it didn't disturb the bluefish. The big ones have moved in, with fish from 6-8 lb. They seem to have scared off the small schoolies. Tons and tons of bait throughout the harbor. Baby bunkers, baby blueback herring, silversides, although not as many as before. Bigger bass are mixing with the blues, and you can occasionally take one from underneath. I've found in the mornings there are more stripers mixed in. I'm headed out this afternoon, and I bet we'll find more blues. There have been very strong tides, very high tides, very low tides. It is like clockwork, as soon as the tide starts the fish come up and start feeding. Today it was dead low tide at 10:45 and we had a full trip and we came in a half hour early, because it just died."

"The bluefish are tough. They're not as easy as the early season bass, where you can just pull right in and start casting. You've got to creep in there without the engine. On the crowded days, try to find your own school, because there's a lot of people that are just going right through them and then wondering where the fish went."

Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel-Dream Charters in Scituate forwarded this:

We continue to see a mix of bass and blues feeding on small bait (juvenile herring and silversides) from Hingham Bay to Boston. Neal Rose and his son John from California had a great time over the weekend catching many fish on both fly and spinning tackle. John caught his first keeper bass and both he and Dad landed some nice size blues. BTW, Neal machines his own fly reels! How 'bout that?

The wind blew us off the water on Monday and Tuesday.

Last evenings trip produced a number of small bass and blues for a charter I did for Capt. Michael Bartlett of B-Fast Charters. The boys from Long Island (New York not Boston) had a great time and enjoyed one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in a long time. Sometimes, catching fish isn't everything...

As long as the weather holds and the bait remains in the Harbor (and there's lots of bait) the fishing should continue to be "world class."

I'm now fishing late afternoons during the week and mornings and afternoons on the weekends. Back to school (ugh)!

Plymouth & South Shore

Capt. John Bunar of Skippy III Charters in Duxbury has seen much the same action this week as was reported last week. "After the wind earlier in the week, the Power Plant heated back up. The number of people fishing there is extraordinary. The mornings and evenings in Plymouth have been producing fish. The guys working the troughs and the sandbars on Duxbury Beach have been taking fish, but nothing large. The word is that the bluefishing has slowed down off of High Pines."

North Shore - Revere to Cape Ann

Capt. Randy Sigler of Sigler Guide Service forwarded this note:

All heck has broken loose in the Marblehead area. The last three week have brought an immense invasion of juvenile menhaden. I have hear many guys refer to then as the bay anchovies, but I believe they are mistaken. There is no translucent part of their body, and they look identical to large pogies, only miniature. They have been around in massive clouds. Needless to say, they have brought every predator fish in the area out of hiding. In the harbors, the mackerel have been wreaking havoc on the schools. Outside of the harbors, the bluefish and bass ( large bass) have been all over them.

We have had a number of choice in our fishing methods. One of the most exciting has been livelineing mackerel. We work the harbor early to fill up the livewell with live mackerel, then go out and liveline them. This morning we releases 12 bass over 36 inches in a 4 hour session. The largest were a pair of 44 inchers that weight 28 lbs each. We also had numerous bluefish hit the mackerel ... some we landed, some we lost.

When we run out of liveies, we switch over to the fly rods. Again, chaos ensues. We have had multiple double headers with both bluefish and bass. There has also been a great deal of success on large fly rod bass. This week brought a season record 43.5" bass on the fly rod. It was taken on a 7 wt rod no less. Quite a week !!!

The bait has been present in unusual amounts all summer long, so I really can't guess how long it will stay. It has, however, already made this summer the best that I can remember !!!

Hopefully we'll get another month out of it.

At River's Edge Trading in Beverly, Jan Van Straaten reports that the northshore has been fishing very well. Silversides and pogies throughout the area. Off Marblehead they are taking 30-40" fish. The Essex and Ipswich River estuaries are fishing very well. The rocks are fishing very well, and we're looking for a a great month.

Jan fished the Cape Cod Canal last week at Sandwich and had a great time taking bass on the fly rod.

Patrick Brown at First Light Anglers in Manchester-by-the-sea reports that the fishing remains hot. "It's been really good. Lots of baby pogies, and baby herring. Tons of mackerel all around Salem Sound and offshore. Bluefish are hitting hard. Lots of bass and blues on the surface at dawn throughout the area. To imitate the baby pogies, any small white bellied flies with a brown back, rainbow flash and silver.

Capt. John Pirie of On Line Fishing Charters reports that offshore has been hot also.

The offshore season has begun to heat up. Lots of blue sharks have been caught on our trips. Clients have caught a number of large male blue sharks in the 250-300 lb range. We got a 7.5' mako on Wednesday. There have been lots of bluefin busting offshore which suggests a good fall season. We started this morning by catching a number of mackerel on fly which we put in the live well for sharks. However, we ran into busting bluefish shortly thereafter and put five 10 pound blues in the well. The mackerel all died from apparent heart attacks upon seeing the bluefish. We went offshore and caught a few nice sharks including one 300 pound female which ate a live bluefish for bait. Then we came inshore and encountered a very helpful gentleman in a Lund named "Shallow Minded". He had been having a tough time catching bluefish and was a little frustrated by his lack of success. We managed to get a bunch of large bass from a nearby school which was filled with fish in the 24-34 inch range. There is still an incredible amount of bait in the area. This promises to be a good weekend for weather and fishing. Get out to Gloucester for a few laughs with Blues and Bass. Call us to set up an offshore trip, we have a few prime shark trips left. We have one three day trip left for North Carolina so call now if you are interested in going.

Have a good labor day, Capt. John T. Pirie

North Shore- The Merrimack River and Plum Island

Capt. Charles Crue of Channel Edge Charters noticed fishing slowed down last weekend, then picked back up this week.

Well here it is September again! We expect to see some fast action as the stripers begin to stock up on bait in preparation for their annual trek south. Last week it appeared that they were already gorging on bait fish with fast surface action for several days through Friday. We had steady surface action near Badgers Rocks on Friday morning on the incoming tide. Most of the stripers were small, about 18-to-20 inches. They provided great action on light fly rods. My client was using an olive/white slider and I used an epoxy baitfish imitation. Friday afternoon around high tide there were some big bass taken out on Joppa Flats. Several were keepers about 30-inches. Saturday was an off day for me. Sunday I was out in the morning. There was some good action early then a total shutdown. I quit about 10:30A.M. because of brisk westerly wind and heavy boat traffic. I am looking forward to the quieter days of September! Early this week the fishing was off. Heavy seas off shore and north east wind really cut down the action. I had clients out on Tuesday and Thursday. They caught stripers but worked hard to get them. Early Thursday morning there were small stripers crashing silversides at the surface near the channel on Joppa Flats. There were reports of a bunch of stripers chasing bait on the surface on Wednesday but I didn't go out there, opting not to get bounced around by the big rollers. I am still looking ahead to good September action.