Boston
Metropolitan
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January 16th, 2004

Home Stretch

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The 2004 Reel-Time Calendar This is sweet...a years worth of fabulous pictures of Reel-Timers in action. A must have! 19.99 plus shipping

Winston Churchill once said, "this is not the end or the the begining of the end, but it is the end of the beginning." As far as the fishing goes along the Massachusetts coast, we're a good deal past that now.

There are still plenty of stripers and blues feeding voraciously out there, but you can expect that the next storm or drop in water temperature is going to light the green light for the majority of them to move into their migration pattern. For now, look for blitzes and some excellent fishing. But remember that by mid-October, these fish will have significantly thinned out, and for my money, I'd be looking to fish more southerly areas, in anticipation of interecepting the fish during their move southward.

Striper Hearings

The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council will be holding hearings to discuss Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fisheries Management Pland for Striped Bass. These hearings will be held in Dedham on 9/24/02 (this coming Tuesday). You can read the full announcement, in PDF format here. You can also download Amendment 6 for review from the ASMFC website (could someone either post it to the RT Forum or email it to me - I cannot access their site, even after 3 hours of trouble shooting with their system admin...).

For those who keep an eye on regulations, you'll remember that last month Massachusetts had hearings of their own about regulation changes. I suspected at the time, and now am fairly convinced, those hearings and the proposed regulatory change was a preemp[tive strike by the Commissioner, Paul Diodati, to avoid loosing harvest allocation to other states.

These hearings have a great bearing on where this fishery will go for the next decade. I strongly urge you to attend.

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

Tight Lines!

Mark Cahill

Boston Harbor

Capt. Bill Smith of Draggin' FLy Charters reports:

Sunday, Sept. 8 Tom DeCapo of Lincoln brought along his young daughter,
Madison and her friend, Tiffany. While Captain Bill worked with Tiffany,
teaching her the fine points of casting, Tom and Madison kept themselves busy
casting to blitzing bluefish. The bite off Nahant was not as good as the
previous day and the crowds were even larger. But all anglers caught fish and
left with big smiles.
    Captain Bill switched to afternoon and evening trips during the week. It
was a family affair on Monday. On board were Dennis Blais of Hanover and
sons, Philip of West Boyleston and Eric of Telluride, Co. Eric, an avid fly
fisher, caught a bunch of bluefish on his own patterns. Dennis and Philip
took turns fly fishing. When not working the long rod, they used poppers and
soft jerk baits on light tackle to tame lots of blues. Action was quite
steady for much of the afternoon throughout Quincy Bay.
    Tuesday, Ron and Catherine DeWitt of Michigan found out that the stories
they read on the internet about the "Hahbah" were all true. Again, the
bluefish put on quite a show, both in Quincy and off Deer Island. Both Ron
and Catherine used fly rods. While Ron used small poppers on his 8 wt.,
Catherine used small Half'N Halfs that Captain Bill had tied to represent the
peanut bunker. These traveling anglers left with sore arms and fond memories
of their trip to Boston. Ron, who has fished all over the world, commented
that this fishing is truly "world class" and he never even got into the bass
bite.
    With respect for friends lost in last year's attack on the World Trade
Center, Draggin' Fly did not fish on Wednesday. Thursday's gusty winds forced
the cancellation of Damon Reed's weekly trip.
    It blew hard during Friday's trip but the fish didn't seem to notice.
Bluefish had the bait trapped in skinny water along the shores of Moon Head.
Joe Gibson and Rob Brubaker of South Boston were into slammer bluefish
throughout the trip. Although new at fly fishing, Joe managed to throw into
the gusty S.W. wind like a seasoned veteran. Rob caught the largest blue of
the day on a white and blue popper. Most of the action was in very shallow
water.
    Saturday, Paul Ponichtera of Hingham put together a crew that included
neighbors, Areline Walsh, Andy Read and Russ. Captain Bill pushed off dock in
the dark looking for a dawn bite. The crew got more that they expected as
Captain Bill positioned the Draggin' Fly in 3 feet of water off Long Island
and told the crew to cast their soft jerk baits to shore. Within a few
seconds, all four anglers were tight to linesiders. This scene was repeated
throughout the morning, with multiple hookups on bass up to 31 inches. The
anglers finished the trip catching blues on surface poppers in Quincy Bay.  

Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports:

Saturday, September 14, 2002: The fall run is definitely in motion and schools of bass and blues were feeding heavily on peanut bunker all over the harbor. At first light, we found bass along the south shore of Long Island with nervous bait spraying out of the water. There was, in fact, so much bait, that hook ups were not as numerous as one might expect. Still, for Enoch Huang, brother Chris and Chris' wife, Stephanie, the fishing was outstanding. Stephanie caught and released the largest bass weighing @ 14 lbs. on the boga grip. Enoch had his first fly casting lesson and managed to catch his first bluefish on the fly in Quincy Bay where the blues were blitzing later in the morning.

Stephanie's nice linesider!                                                        Chris Huang with a hefty schoolie.

Sunday, September 15, 2002:  The rain that was predicted never happened and the 15 - 25 mph winds were more like 15 - 20, so Chris Nelson and John Stinner from Nebraska joined me for their very first Northeast saltwater adventure. John preferred spin tackle whereas Chris was bound and determined to stick with the fly rod. The boys from Nebraska were amazed to see striped bass boiled on top in shallow water with bait spraying out of the water for deer life. We found  bass and blues along the shore of Long Island and further north in the area of Nahant Harbor, Little Nahant Harbor and Bass Point. John caught and released a nice 12 lb. bass on light tackle. It took Chris a while to get the feel of fly casting in saltwater from a boat, but eventually he was hooking up on just about every cast later in the morning. Large schools of blues were on top from Bass Point to the North Channel and not especially fussy about fly selection.

Chris Nelson and a fly rod blue offshore.                       John's keeper bass released to fight another day!

Thursday, September 19, 2002: The morning and afternoon tides are producing both stripers and blues in the Harbor from Hingham Bay to Deer Island. There is plenty of bait, such as peanut bunker, and the fish are on the "heavy feed bag". This weekend's full moon, incoming tides should generate some great action offshore and in the bays, as well.

The fishing in Boston this fall has been nothing short of outstanding and should continue through mid-October. I still have a few open dates left in September and October so give me a call if you're hankerin' to wet a line before it's all over.

Until next week, we'll see you out there...

Capt. Wayne Frieden

 

Sandy reports:

Quincy Bay and Hingham Bay both were loaded with blues last weekend. If the wind is light the birds should have no problem finding the fish so keep an eye out for them. The key is finding breaking fish before the birds do, because generally, birds are boat magnets. If you go tomorrow morning the tide will be coming in and should bring in the bait. Good luck!

Touching Cloth had this from Thursday:

I fished the harbor this morning, and there were still tons of blues around, nailing baby pogies right off of the airport, near the winthrop public boat ramp. we weren't on the water for more than 5 minutes before they started blitzing the surface for about 2 hours around 1st light. the action died around 8, and we fished the structure off of deer island, netting one schoolie for the rest of the morning. we saw a fishing television show being made in the 30' water east of deer isle, which was kind of cool. the fishing boat was anchored and bouncing chunks off of the bottom with great results, actually. we saw them get about 6 fish on in about 10 minutes. another boat would film them from a distance, and whenever they landed fish, the camera boat would come closer and get the fish-displaying footage. they were getting these fish around 9 AM, so i'd say fish shallow in the morning, and deep in the day. those blues were right off the landing strip in less than 5 feet of water, and they would only hit rubber. surface, and metal did not work, and they didn't much care for wire leaders either. i've sort of experienced that the fish eating these pogies tend to be more selective than most. good luck out there.

South Shore

This is the time of year to be fishing Plymouth.  You'll have a great chance of finding large schools of breaking fish at dwn (and throughout the day from Gurnet Point down to Maryanne's Rocks off Rocky Point.  Let' face it, the fish have two choices: the can either go around the cape or through the canal, and if they are going through the canal, they have to take the piscatorial version of Rt. 3 which at some point must take them past Plymouth. 

North Shore

Charles Dickens starts his immortal Tale of Two Cities with the line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  That can be true of fall  fishing as the following posts show.  Sometimes, there is just so much bait around that you can't hook up, even with the fish crashing like crazy.  It's often easier to accept a bad day when you haven't seen a fish, but when you can't hook up in a blitx, it is one of the most annoying situations imaginable.

The Merrimack River

Capt. Charlie Crue of Channel Edge Charters reports: