Reel-Time's Fly Fishing Reports for the Boston Metropolitan Region

November 21, 2009

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Boston Metropolitan Region January 16th, 2004

FishWire Coordinator:	Mark Cahill
Navigation Aids:

Who Left the Door Open?

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You know you're truly scr*wed when you have Englishmen complaining about the weather. To quote Leigh from Manchester (UK, of course) "You blokes sure get a lot of rain."

Of course the weather has played havoc with the fishing. The water temps are below ideal, and that puts the fish into really bizzarre patterns, as I mentioned last week. Still, there are rays of hope. Firstly, it's got to warm up sometime. The rain we can handle, but cold water creates problems. Secondly, the mackerel have moved in, and that means lots of tasty forage for large fish.

Those of you with kids should remember that Macs are the perfect way to break in the little anglers. Lots of actions and they really hit hard on light tackle. Think about using your trout rods to teach a kid how to fight fish on the fly. By taking down the barb on any shiny fly, you'll get them used to keeping the pressure on a fish.

Okay, I hate playing the role of the Amazing Kreskin, but then again, it's not to hard to predict that there will be boating fatalities on Memorial Day weekend. As a boat owner, you are responsible for the lives of those on your boat. Make sure you have life preservers, than anyone who cannot swim well is wearing one, that everyone on the boat knows where they are and can get them easily, and for God's sake, be very, very careful. The sad, often forgotten truth of our sport, is that fishermen are all too often claimed by the sea.

If you would like to contribute to the body of knowledge about this sport, it has become much easier. We have launched Pattern Post, which allows you to post fly patterns that will be indexed and made available on this site. If you've got more than 20 posts on our forums, you can login at http://www.reel-time.com/pattern/rt_cms using your forum login and password to upload tying instructions and pictures. Remember to give credit where credit is due to the originating tyers! Once you've uploaded a pattern, email me and I will edit the photos and make it live!

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

Tight Lines!

Mark Cahill

Boston Metropolitan Regions

NEWS

The cold temps have put the fish into a funk. While there are some rays of hope, like Salem Sound, many of the areas are very spotty for this time of year. The Merrimack River is fishing, but not as well as one would expect. Boston Harbor is seeing it's share of action, but it too is a on again, off again. To the south, Damons and Powder Point are holding fish, but spotty is the word. We need some warm days to get the water heated up and really get things rolling.

Boston Harbor

Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports:

Sunday, May 25, 2003: Very tough conditions today for Brian Warden of Colorado and his father, Tom. With 15-20 knot east winds and rough seas outside the harbor, we were relegated to fishing inside with not many options. We missed a short lived bite in Dorchester Bay @ the top of the high tide but did get a few at the Deer I. rip. Tom caught his largest fish on the fly which weighed @ 10# and gave him a great fight on an 8 wt.

Monday, Memorial Day, May 26, 2003: Didn't fish Boston this morning but wish I had. Reportedly nice schoolie action on the south side of Thompson I. with flat calm conditions and no rain. What a difference a day makes!

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

Capt. Wayne

Capt. Wayne Frieden
Reel Dream Charters
fish@reeldreamcharters.com
PO Box 274
Scituate, MA 02066-0274
617-909-7122

Grimace posts regarding Black's Creek:

I took my first keeper of the year there last Friday 5/28 (29"). Get to know the channels there by checking it out at low tide. It gets real shallow in many spots. I fish out away from the bridge and have most of my luck. But there is alot of deep water just as the tide turns (outflow from the bridge is approximately 2 hours after high tide.) I think the best way to fish the place is were waders and follow the falling tide out.

I have heard of guys fishing the flats there at low tide. Watch the incoming tide as you can get in trouble if your not paying attention. Last year, when I first moved there I must have walked a 1/2 mile out to find deep water. I got a little lost on the way back in as trying to find the shallow passage.

I haven't hit it with fish after fish but I have heard it can get that way. Good luck.

Dryfly reports:

Inner Harbor 5/27 Pm
fished from 7 till 9:30 last night, from logan flats around to spectacle island and back into the inner harbor. gorgeous night, flat calm. nothing showing on the flats near top of the tide, no takers on surface or depth charge with ch. half and halfs and decievers- on the inside of the coast guard station a fair amount of bass just sitting right under the surface, hooked and lost one nice fish off some pilings, besides that not a hit. seems that maybe the fish were too keyed in on the giant schools of herring in the channel- who knows, but i think we need a good couple of 80 degree days to get them moving around a bit. better luck tonight i hope.

Sandy had this on the Deer Island Rip:

Things picked up at the tip of Deer Isle a couple hours after high. We drifted over Faun Bar for about three hours and had fish on almost every drift. They were hitting 5" herring patterns with sinking line and Storm Shads in chart. and white. Most of the fish caught were in the 24" to 26" range. The biggest on the fly was 26", the biggest on spin gear was 29". I'll post some pics when i get them off my camera. Great way to end the day!

South Shore

Swashy posted this about the Powder Point Bridge - an area that's been a little spotty this week.

I was there Sunday night at about 10:30pm and at Howland's before that...nothing. I did manage 3 short fat fish at Damon's Point yesterday afternoon to salvage the weekend.

Capt. Dave Bitters reports on the Baymen Outfitters website:

Here's the what's happening on the bay!

First up, take a look at this Tautog landed of the Powder Point Bridge yesterday afternoon. It weighed in at seven and a half pounds and was landed by Robert Crawford of E. Bridgewater on BAYMEN Sea Clams. Robert, way to go. That's one corker of a Tautog and one fine supper!

Santa landed two striped bass from the PPB yesterday that taped in at 27". He made up for the short inch today by landing a 28" 3/4 inch keeper that he walked to shore. He caught several more shorts and had several runners that dropped the chunk mack.

Hat's off to Dave Gabrielli, who broke the ice today with a fine keeper bass taken on a live mackerel in one of the bay channels. Dave ran our and jigged the only mack around and then live-lined it back in the bay. For his trouble, he will be eating striper fillets tonight!

On Monday, Chris Violandi and Mike Damore had a record breaking day in Duxbury bay. They landed over fifty bass as the fog was rolling in, and they ended up with 28", a 29", and 36" inch stripers, all caught in Duxbury bay. Amazing... Now you know why this is called the striped bass capitol of the world!

Dale Lathrop, a new member of the BAYMEN Angler's Club, landed himself a fine keeper bass on Monday as well. He did it on a fly rod - from shore - in Duxbury bay. Hey Dale, do you always catch on this easy...?

Yesterday, my charter was Dennis Callahan of Hingham. On his fifty-fifth birthday, he decided it was time to learn to saltwater fly fish, and booked himself a trip. Dennis learned to cast better in this one trip than most learn in year. He's a natural. And he landed his first fly rod striper. It didn't quite match his 48" striper landed last season on chunk bait, but Dennis was quite pleased just the same. Did I mention our charter day weather was 25 knots solid out of the North and that yours truly was wearing winter jacket, gloves, and hat...?! The wind was absolutely pounding and it never let up once. It beat us up, but, by God, we landed some stripers!!!

Todays charter was repeat customers, Dean Romanow and Stan Swier. Both seasoned fly fishermen. You will remember they also chartered with me last Wednesday and we landed fifty-one bass including two keepers, all on the fly rods. Well, today they topped that record by landing seventy striped bass on the fly rods! At least, that's when we stopped counting... And the bay was like a mill pond, flat calm, and we could see fish breaking for nearly a mile across the water. We fished two fly patterns today. Guess which ones: Capt. Dave's BAYMEN Universal and Adam Johnson's Chartreuse/Yellow/White Half & Half. Top fly lines were again the RIO all clear Striped Bass line and Jim Teeny's 300 Grain Salmon line. It was non-stop fishing from 5:00am until 11:00am and the fish were still breaking when we left... Check out this photo of the blitz at Bug Light this morning! Just incredible... Amazing...

Well, we've got bait, we've got fly patterns, and all the rods, reels, and tackle to make your day on the bay a success. Stop in if you need something or just to say hello. And keep us posted on how you do out there. The season is in full swing and the fishing is HOT!!!

Tight Lines & Fish On!

Capt. David Bitters

North Shore

Capt. John Pirie of Online Fishing Charters reports:

This week brought another influx of good sized fish. We found some larger fish eating tiny sand eels at the surface in the Parker and Ipswich rivers. These fish were feeding under birds during the first two hours of the drop. Out front, the ocean had been rough early in the week but seems to be settling down some now.

The Annisquam river seems to be holding decent numbers of fish as well. Essex and Castleneck creek are doing extremely well. Tons of fish, decent amounts of bait make this a fabulous time to fish. Add in the lack of people or greenheads and you can easily see why we like fishing from our Ipswich dock this time of year. There should be a good worm hatch this weekend.

We had a small hatch a couple of weeks ago but with the full moon we should see a hatch
one of these nights. On the Manchester ocean front things are beginning to heat up. Reports of fish in the beverly/salem harbor area suggest fishing has been improving. Offshore, huge schools of sand eels abound. Hopefully they will stay there long enough to bring up the big run of bluefish that we should be seeing soon.

There are still huge schools of herring off the gloucester coast. This will help keep those large bass close to shore. We have a few open days in June if you are interested in
fishing for bass and blues.

There are some dates in July and a few days left for the school bluefin tuna that provided us with so much entertainment last year. Drop us a line if you are intersted in setting
up a charter.

Good luck this week.

Capt. John T. Pirie
978.468.1314
email jpirie@olfc.com

ThomSmith posts on the RT Forum:

Essex River Report
The Essex River fished well today on the morning ebb. We boated 35 - 40 fish from 10:00 AM to about 1:30 PM. Size between 15 and 26". Hitting on half & halfs fished deep. Most of the fish were in the main channel.

Rainy and cold, but who cares?

Soundking reports from Salem Sound:

Salem Sound 5/28 pm- great fishing continues in rivers
Hit the water last night at six, just as the tide began to move. First spot hit was a mussle bar at the confluence of the Bass and Danvers rivers, Bass had juvie herring pinned against the exposed bar, and were breaking frequently. It seemed that every cast in a trough behind an arm of the bar would produce a schoolie. Nailed a handfull of fish there for about twenty minutes on olive over pearl kinky mouths (a mushmouth/kinky fibre hybrid I designed) and pearl wildeyes. Yet as soon as about four feet of water came in, it was like a switch was thrown, and the fish stopped feeding instantly. Tried upriver in the Bass with nothing to speak of, except for three guys on a sandbar drilling the small fish on what seemed like every cast. Came back downriver, and drifted some mussle bars that I like, saw one swirl, but not a hit, by this time it was almost dark, time to head in. On the way in, I noticed large ammounts of bait getting nailed by a large ammount of bass under the railroad bridge lights. Dropped the boat off, and drove up to the bridge, and caught a ton of fish in two hours combat urban fishing style. What must be stated is that these fish were very keyed in on the juvie herring, and because there was so much bait in the water, it became extremely difficult to get these fish to hit a retirved fly or lure. I employed a play out of the b.a.s.s. tour playbook, and was pitching a wildeye to breaking fish, and feeling it as it fell through the school. With a small, light jig as it is, and 15 feet of water, it would seldom hit bottom, while these fish would not hit any other retrive. What I am eluding to is if you ever encounter keyed in fish, and you cannot buy a strike, try dead drifting your fly/lure under the fish, just keeping tension, you might be suprised by how many fish you catch. Bait was purple backed, with a little lavender line. They have changed out of their silverside looking stage of fry to their mature look of fingerlings, and soon will be heading out of the harbors when it gets just slightly warmer. Next week, look to the mouths of harbors for the first feed fo the year. Thats it until tomorrow.

The Merrimack River

Capt. Charlie Crue came through with another great Merrimack River report:

Merrimack River Report #3 May 28, 2003

There is no doubting that the striped bass have arrived in the Merrimack River Estuary area. They can be found in almost anywhere as they follow the bait, sometimes driving the schools of frantic minnows (sand eels, baby smelt or silversides) to the surface. In spite of the lousy weather fishermen are catching stripers ranging from "micros" (14-inch) to small keeper size (28 to 33-inches). They are being caught from the beaches, the river banks and boats. Lures and flies are working well. For flies the preferred colors are olive/white, white, chartreuse/white and various other clouser and deceiver combinations. The spin guys are doing well with swimming and surface lures as well as jigs and softbaits. A spin fisherman who stopped into Hudson's Fishing & Boating Center, where I have been spending time helping out with the fly and other tackle sales, reported that he did very well on stripers casting a Sara Spook.

Thus far I have not had any reports of bruiser size stripers but they can be expected to show up any day.

Many of my charter trips have been going up the river to the between the Route 1 and Route 95 bridges around the high tide. My clients have enjoyed catching many stripers with usually at least one large enough to be very close or above keeper size, although all were released. I continue to use flies and lures with bent down barbs on the hooks.

Tuesday morning my client and I found a large school of stripers smashing minnows at the edge of the channel just across from my marina. Richard is an experience trout fly fisherman but had not caught a striper on a fly until then. He caught and released so many stripers that he is now "experienced". His largest very hard fighting striper measured just over 28-inches (photo).

Capt. Chales Crue

Channel Edge Charters

Bill Downing posted this report:

PI report 5-29
Lots of little ones at the Merrimack mouth this AM at low slack and especially the incoming. A few guys had some 28-31 inch fish. Just about anything was working.

Best of all, no mosquitoes and a WEST, I repeat, a WEST wind. Imagine that!

-bd

FishinBill had this:

Slim pickins on the Merrimack (5/28)
Fished from the sandbar today from about 2:30 - 5:30. Low tide was at 5:00. Only managed one schoolie on a chart. clouser. I started out fishing Storm Wildeyes on the bottom for the first 1 1/2 hours with no luck, then switched to the fly rod when the guy next to me started hooking up. There was a pretty good crowd there for a weekday, but I didn't see anyone having better luck. Mostly schoolies up and down the shore, and in limited numbers. The folks in boats appeared to be doing well, but it was hard to tell.

The weather was OK, but it rained HARD on the way up there. Power was out in much of Newburyport and the folks at Surfland helped me find my stuff with the aid of a flashlight.

Best part of the trip--stopping in at the Clam Box in Ipswitch on the way home for clams with bellies.

Paul StG reports:

I fished the other side at Sailsbury yesterday and in the morning with the tide coming in I did OK. A couple of dozen small schoolies on the Chartruse Clouser. One fair fish and a couple of good ones but mostly small. As soon as the tide started going out the action slowed down quite a bit, then came the rain and lightening and I left. I fished from about 9:30 to 1:30 or so. I will be heading out again in a few minutes after I drop my son off at school. Looks like a nice day, too bad I have to be back by 2 for work.