Boston
Metropolitan
Region

January 16th, 2004

In Praise of Rain...

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As Joni Mitchell once crooned, "you don't know what you got til it's gone..." we may soon find ourselves looking back on the days of rain as the good old days.

Okay, so most of us don't really like to get soaking wet while we fish. The important thing is that we're willing to do it. That gives us a leg up on 95% of the fishermen and boaters out there. Think about it...after every single nice, sunny day, we're seeing guys posting in the forum about the antics at the Merrimack, or in Boston Harbor

It is inescapable. The rain is our friend. It keeps the yahoos at home or at least off the water.

Give me a nice rain and the dead of night. I've always maintained that striper fishing is a sport that's perfect for the melanin challenged. After all it is best practiced in the dead of night.

Update - 6-30: It was erroneously reported that the grand prize wasn't awarded last week at the Boston Harbor Striper Shootout sponsored by Russo Marine. Even though they were short on entries, the Russo's did award the 13' Whaler.  Congrats to the winner, and to the folks at Russo for putting on the tourney.  This came in from Capt Jim Jadul:

To the contrary, despite up front advertising that the Whaler would be
the top prize based on a 100 boat entry, Larry Russo and his family
agreed to continue his offer of the Whaler as the top prize even though
there were only 30 entries.

The winner of the tournament and the Whaler with a 47 3/4" striper was
Ms Kathy Theiling. She can be contacted for verification thru Admiral's
Hill Marina.

Capt Jim Jadul
General Manager
Admiral's Hill Marina

BTW, if your want to have a really good read I strongly suggest checking out this thread in which Shaun "Blue xxxxs" Ruge earns a new nickname for himself..."Bait."

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

Tight Lines!

Mark Cahill

Boston Harbor

Capt Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters is out on the water full time now.  Here's his report for this week.

Saturday, June 21, 2002: Guess what? The weatherman was wrong again! A
great morning on the water with very light wind until late morning.
Found birds working  at first light in Hingham Bay over bass feeding
agressively on large herring.  Sean Flynn and his friends Eddie and
Bobby had a great morning of light tackle and fly fishing. There was
some sporadic bird action near Hangman's and later off Spectacle I. We
spent the majority of the morning fishing structure in Quincy Bay and
the boys caught many schoolies up to Eddie's 34" keeper. Most of the
fish were taken on  6" white sluggos.

Tuesday, June 24, 2003:  The weather turned warm today and the sea
conditions were FAC. Not much in the way of breaking fish as the bait
supply in Boston appears to be on the lean side. That can change any
day...Badge Blaxkett and his long time friends Stephen Vaughan and
Charlie Weiss joined me for a morning of fly and light tackle fishing.
The fly definitely outfished jigs and sluggos today. Picked up a couple
of nice fish early off the east end of Long I. then headed north in
search of greener pastures. We fished the short water near Revere and
were into steady action for a good part of the morning. Largest fish was
34" taken by Badge fishing a gray/lavender half and half (what else?) on
an 8 weight fly rod. Badge also picked up another good fish in Quincy
Bay using a smaller chartreuse/white clouser. However, the fish in
Quincy were very finicky. Small blue fish have also arrived in Quincy
Bay, right on schedule.

Wednesday, June 25, 2003: Well, same beautiful weather as yesterday. No
wind, flat calm, very warm. There was an early morning blitz that was
short-lived but provided quick action for Taylor Thompson and his sons,
Graham and Warren. Found bass and small blues in the usual places and
lots of them. However, hook ups were few and far between as these fish
were incredibly finicky and somewhat frustrating for our anglers.
Nonetheless, it was a great day on the water!

Thursday, June 26, 2003: Another beautiful summer day in Boston Harbor
for Mike Peters, his brother Jeff and their friend Bobby. Mike and Bobby
chose to fly fish while Jeff used light  spin tackle. While Jeff managed
a couple of nice schoolies on sluggos and bass assassins, the guys using
flies outfished spinning lures. We had some nice bass off one of the
islands and Bobby, who had never fly fished in the salt, caught the
largest bass of the day (@30") and the most fish as well! Unfortunately,
my brand new digital camera decided to stop working (batteries were
good...camera was defective) and none of the nice bass that were caught
and released were captured on film...or digital chip).

Until next time,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

Captain Bill Smith of Draggin' Fly Charters came through with this report:

On Sunday, June 15 Phil Strazula of Norwell brought along his eleven year old son Michael for a light tackle trip. A few fish were found on the ledges off of Castle Island but they were more interested in chasing herring than the Mr. Twister soft jerk baits. On the slack tide the fish came up for a short time in Southie. However, these fish also proved difficult to catch. Phil managed to catch the first bass of the trip before the crew moved on. Michael caught a nice bass on a Vivit jig at the Deer Island rip. On the incoming tide, both Strazulas did much better at Thompson's Western Way. Although the fishing was on the slow side, the trip proved to be a great way for the Strazulas to spend Father's Day.

On June 18th John Rogers from Scituate brought along friends, Lou from Scituate and James from Quincy. John, an avid fly fisher whether it's Atlantic salmon or striped bass, prefers to fish his seven weight fly rod. Lou and James used soft jerk baits on 10 and 12 pound rods. Captain Bill found fish in Hingham, but they proved difficult to catch. As the Draggin' Fly moved into Quincy Bay, the fish were more cooperative. John was the first to hook up on a clouser that he tied quite sparsely. For the next hour, the crew kept Capt. Bill busy unhooking bass in the 20-24 inch class. A decision was made to move on in search of bigger fish. And they jumped bass in Dorcester Bay, Sculpin Ledge, and on the Deer Island Flats.

On Saturday, June 21 Dave Deits of Sharon brought along his teenage daughter Rachel. Dave, an expert fly fisher  comes aboard the Draggin'  Fly several times a season, usually with one of his sons. This was Rachel's first trip, and she more than held her own. Not only did she catch the largest fish but she also caught the most fish on soft jerk baits. Action began at sunrise, just minutes from dock in Hingham Bay. Dave fished a small Half 'N Half on intermediate line. Rachel caught her first fish on Mr. Twister Exudes. The first bluefish of the season also attacked Rachel's jerk bait in Quincy Bay. Both Dave and Rachel released several legal size bass. Most of these were caught in very shallow water.

Shaun Ruge had this:

Boston shore 6/24 pm
Fished Deer island by shore. Parking lot was full as usual, but not many fishing, at least from shore. Went to the usual spots but the higher tide made it tough to fish. Went deep with a large 12" herring fly for a couple hours. 2 solid takes but I couldn't get them to the rocks. The first take I made the rookie rod tip lift hook set. That fish didn't last long. Second fish, the lesson really sank in and once again, up goes the rod tip a few head shakes later, there goes the fish. Idiot. After that I went to some shallow water chest deep and tossed my go to bunny clouser with nothing to show for it but some impressive salads. with the current I actually had a salad take line. She put up a good fight at first but was no match for my 20lb leader and quickly tired out. So no fish for me last night.

Warning...preachy below!
I don't know how many people boating read these but on higher tides, especially calm nights like last, if you are not that familiar with the Rip, PLEASE do not try to troll tight to the shore lines. Stay in deeper water out in the rip. There were 2 boats last night that were trolling with 3 guys in the boat about 50 yards from shore at high tide. Anyone who knows that area knows why I am saying this. That water is 3-5 feet deep a couple hundred feet from the high tide line and has rocks just under the surface all the way. There are more submerged rock piles and bars at high tide that are not visible due to the 2 foot visibility. You will lose your lower units. Please be careful. With out the wave action and wind chop you will never see them coming. The boat I watched twice came within spitting distance of a submerged rock pile less than 1 foot under the water and probably never knew it. Would have made for a sweet photo though...Just check the area out at low tide first and mark the rocks on you gps if you have one. It may save you some serious money and a tow back when you lose your prop to one. I am not saying don't fish it, do, its a great productive area, but get to know it first before rushing in to shallow water.
Then again, by the looks of the 7 boats within 100 yards of each other trolling I can see why they opted to go around the rip. Its a big area, at higher tides with reduced current flow, in my opinion, fish are spread out all over that area, not stacked up in some spots like they do at lower tides and higher flow. No need to be that close.

Cannonball notes that things are getting out of hand with boats in the harbor.

Boston Harbor 6/21..What a Fiasco
I took 2 guys from my office out Saturday morning - we had high hopes based on the tide and what my friends had done on Friday morning. Well, on Saturday the weekend fleet was out stronger than I have ever seen it...there were probably 5 - 6 boats in Quincy Bay running down a couple small schools of fish, and there were at LEAST 30 boats anchored and chunking outside Deer Island in the "triangle." They were throwing so much bait around they drew their own cloud of gulls. I saw one small pod of fish push bait (and attract birds) against the inside of Peddocks, and they were immediately attacked and put down by 4 - 5 boats. It was worse than anything I've seen during the Albie mayhem around Woods Hole.

We got frustrated and went in - I really think that if I were limited to weekend fishing in the harbor I'd give up and do something else...

HydroTechNoCrat had this in response:

Started off at 5 am catching a few schoolies in Dot bay. Thought there had to be surface action with bigger fish somewhere in the vicinity. Checked the anchorage, Airport, Quincy Bay to Peddocks and even went outside and checked out Broad Sound. I didn't see much except for the sparse, sporadic suface action you described.

Went back to DOT bay and caught some more schoolies.

If there were more fish around the boat density wouldn't seem so extreme. Structure is the way to go in these conditions.

But its definately a bummer when there are few fish and many boats.

DTB

South Shore

Duxbury Bay and Plymouth Harbor are starting to see some bluefish action.  There's still word of keeper bass being taken inside the bay. 

Bassbuster had this report:

6/24 D-Bury Beach
Hit the beach last night, wrong tide but I went anyways. Forgot the waders, so I wet waded surprisingly it wasn't that bad which is unusual for there. The couple of coldies before may have helped. No luck in the hour plus fishing. However I did notice sporadic tern and gull activity. Upon further inspection they seemed to be feeding on thousands of tiny shrimp, they couldn't have been more than a 1/4 inch long. PPB was loaded w/poles a few schoolies and occasional small blues were being caught.

North Shore

Capt. John Pirie of Online Fishing Charters reports:

The Merrimack River

More river shrimp swarms are confounding fly fishermen on Joppa.  It's a bear when you can see the swirls, but simply can't get connected to the fish.  Try small flies, gotchas etc.  Keep this in mind:  big fish don't target a single shrimp.  The target a whole cloud of them, which makes it very hard to present the proper imitation.