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| FishWire Coordinator: | Mark Cahill |
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| 'Tis the Season!
1. You will not catch fish from your Barcolounger. It's early season and that means that the tactics I'd expect to work will be much different than I'd use in the heat of July. Here are a few things to keep in mind: 1. Fish up in the rivers and bays. Remember to take a kid fishing! Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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3. You can probably fish the early morning/late evening and not really annoy your wife in doing so.
I'd like to thank our sponsors for making another year of Boston Metropolitan FishWire reports possible. This season we've been joined by Capt. Richard Armstrong of Boston Metropolitan Regions
| NEWS |
| They're here! This ought to be a great weekend to go out and fill up on mackerel anywhere along the eastern coast. The striper are in spring mode, look for the warmer water to find them. Reports of good catches deep in the rivers like the North, Back and Danvers are fairly common. Boston Harbor itself is starting to come alive, with fish showing in the usual spots. Get out there! |
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Boston Harbor
Capt. Rich Armstrong of Boston FishStix: May 20, 2004 The Harbor this week has been getting better each day. As the water temp rises (54-56 degrees) and bait continues to move in, we've seen fish in the usual spots around the inner harbor and shallows (6 -7ft). Each outing has produced several schoolies and at least one keeper size bass. At the Worcester show this year I picked up some new soft plastic baits (FYI, if you've never been to the Worcester show check it out, even if you consider yourself strictly a fly gal or guy you can't beat the variety) that have incredible colors, realness and holographics Check out Tsunmai Pro Holographic swim baits, I have no idea how "new" they really are, but it was the first time I've found them on the shelf. This time of year I prefer the herring/blue back color. If you've never really focused on soft plastic(s) you should give them a try, they're much fun and can mix things up when things get slow on the fly. Speaking of the fly, I have been enjoying some green and white herring patterns tied by my friend on the south shore...Mike Rice-Muddog Flies. This weekend will be the best yet for fishing, break out the spinning rod and sinking lines and hit the water. Too bad I'll miss it b/c of a work trip. Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports: Capt. John Mendelson reports: Got out this evening for the start of the outgoing tide with a couple Brian Danforth reports: Last Weds. we caught seven bass off the airport, right in the main harbor channel. 1 was a keeper.
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May 22, 2004: Matt Boles of Atlanta, GA joined me this morning for some light tackle spin fishing. The water temps. have warmed significantly over the past week and the schoolies, including some small keepers, have found their way into the harbor. Unfortunately, the weather was less than desirable for a day on the water with a pesky NE wind, rain, and overcast. We did find small bass in Quincy Bay and Matt had a great time fishing jigs and soft plastics (unweighted) on lite tackle. According to one of my guide friends, the fishing on Sunday was better before the fog rolled in as there was no wind and rain. The bass were found in the same location but stayed up through the slack water. Once we get into a more stable weather pattern with warmer temps. fishing should be very good. This weekend promises to be sunny (promises, promises) and I do have Sunday and Monday open at this point in time. When the northeast wind isn't blowing, like today (May 26), the fishing has been good during the latter few hours of the outgoing tide in the morning. The afternoon bite hasn't yet gotten going.
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South Shore
Capt. Dave Bitters at Baymen Outfitters reports: The spring blitz on Duxbury, Kingston, Plymouth and surrounding waters has been up and down for the past two weeks. We had a very early mini-blitz the first week of May. Then next week it was very slow. Third week, we had a great week of top-water action on the bay! Four trips in a row yielded catch and release of 31, 28, 23, and 32 fish (striped bass). They slammed our BAYMEN Universal Fly Patterns on RIO Intermediate lines with gusto. The Light Tackle anglers did equally well with small, medium, and large rubber crank baits by Storm. My best fish in the bay last week was a 32 1/2 on fly gear and a BAYMEN Universal Fly pattern. That fish was hooked in eight feet of water on the back end of a schoolie blitz. It hit on a fast strip, and then ran off the flat into a 30 foot deep channel, taking 70 yards of backing with it. Ten minutes later it was in the boat and on the way to Chef Patrick for baked stuffed bass and a striped bass pizza! honor our soldiers.
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North Shore
Well, the new season is upon us and typical early season fishing is established. This is the "variety" season, as there are many different fishing options to choose from.The striped bass fishing is underway, but it focuses around smaller fish. The warmer bays have a decent supply of fish that will readily jump on flies, swimming plugs and rubber jigs. Most of the fish are running 18" - 24". We are beginning to see some fish setting up along the rocky shoreline. This is our bread & butter fishery, casting flies and plugs right into the frothy white water pockets. You very often see the fish come out and hit the fly and it is quite an exciting fishery. Over the next few weeks, this fishery should set itself up quite nicely. June is prime season for this "sight" casting.The cod fishing is holding on strong, with numerous fish in the 5 - 10 lb range, and a few jumbos. We chase these fish either jigging just off the bottom or by drifting bait just off the bottom. I enjoy this fishing quite a bit, and for dinner, nothing beats fresh codfish.Lastly, the mackerel and herring are in solid. The kids love catching mackerel, and as an added benefit, they provide a nice supply of bait for those summer doldrums when bait becomes the way to take the larger fish. Again, things should be happening rapidly over the next few weeks as we transition from early spring into the fantastic bass fishing of June. If you would like more information or would like to book a trip, please email Randy @striper.com or call 1-888-FLY-LINE (359-5463) Capt. Derek Spingler at First Light Anglers had this (this one's from last week, I expect another update today): May 20th- Well the season is certainly off and running. Reports continue to improve daily with the first few legal sized fish being caught. The reports from the south side of Cape Ann have been a bit scattered. We did have one customer take a 39” bass out of the Danvers River on the fly a few days ago!! Otherwise I have heard both good and bad reports regarding both the Danvers and Little Rivers. The Ipswich Bay side of the Annisquam has been fishing decent from both the shore and boat, generally on the start of the incoming tide. The incoming tide has also proved to fish better in the Essex River. We have been running trips in the Essex over the last week and the fishing has been steady. No large fish taken as of yet, but I have heard of a couple of legal fish being caught. Two customers of ours caught close to a hundred fish on Monday casting Storm Wildeye plastics, Mambo minnows and Rebel Jumpin’ Minnows. We have mainly been fishing the Castleneck River with small herring patterns and clousers. I generally prefer heavy bright patterns this time of year as the water is still a bit dirty and the fish seem to sit down low where the water is a bit clearer.. Plum Island sound has also been producing decent action with both the Parker and Rowley rivers fishing well. Apparently there was a huge surface feed Wednesday afternoon off the mouth of the Parker River. One of our customers spoke of acres of breaking schoolies! Shore anglers have been doing OK up the rivers, however, the most consistent action appears to be out at the mouths and in the sound. Anglers have also been doing well off of Little Neck and Pavillion beach. Again the incoming tide has been fishing better. Reports from the Merrimack and Plum Island have been good not great. There has been good schoolie action upriver for almost two weeks now. Reports from the Joppa Flats area and the mouth have been a bit slow. The water temp seems to still be a bit cool to start any massive feeds but I would suspect this weekend should show the first signs of solid action on Joppa, particularly with reports of big surface feeds in Plum Island Sound. I would also imagine our first big fish should push up into the river in the next couple of days looking for the large herring. We did have one customer report taking some fish in the 30” class off the front side of Plum Island on the fly a couple of nights ago. Including one fish that was 39” that ate a black Slug-Go. He said all the fish were caught in a short period and seemed to be one small group of large fish pushing up the beach. If I hear of any large bodies of big fish I will certainly let you all know. Word on the water is that the mackerel have pushed in thick off Gloucester, Marblehead and Boston. We will be off to investigate on Friday, hopefully the first big fish have followed them inside. Regardless we will be out chasing them around and try and keep everyone posted. As always, please call the shop with any questions or for a daily report. Take care and good luck! Capts. Derek and Nat (978)948-7004 derek@firstlightanglers.com |
Capt. Randy Sigler of Sigler Guide Service reports:  |
The Merrimack River
Capt. Charlie Crue of Channel Edge Charters reports: The season has begun! It looks to be a good one, based upon the early action. The Parker River produced early action at the end of April while the Merrimack was inactive. I fished the Parker River to get my first stripers May 8. I caught five or six nice healthy fish with sea lice indicating that they were fresh from the ocean. Isolated stripers were caught along the beach front and at the north end of Plum Island during the first week of May. The Merrimack action picked up around May 13. The river mouth was hosting hundreds of seals. They may have slowed the influx of stripers. I caught several schoolies with scars that appeared to be from the grasp of a seal. The week of May 9 the stripers began to move into the Merrimack River estuary with large numbers showing on the surface on May 13 and 14. I caught half a dozen schoolies off of the beach at the north end of Plum Island on May 13. On Saturday, May 15, I fished up river from Newburyport. We caught schoolies of the small variety below the Chain Bridge. The action was slow but steady. It was a very bright and warm day. Because of Over the week end there were reports of some legal size stripers that were caught off the beach and under the Gillis Bridge.Tuesday I took a client up river to fish around the islands. We did well in terms of the number of stripers caught and released, but no big ones. Most fish were schoolies in the 15 to 18 inch range. There were a couple of twenty inch fish. After a long cold winter those hard fighting little guys were great therapy as they fought hard taxing our 8 and 9 WT fly rods. Richard enjoyed using my new Sage Xi2 9 WT fly rod. Captain Charles Crue |
Merrimack River Report #1 May 19, 2004
the very summer like weather there was much boat traffic. It didn’t help us fishing when a speedster went roaring by. It is one reason that I prefer the early morning for fishing. The following morning was overcast and threatening rain. I went out alone after my client had to cancel. I went up river fishing during the high incoming tide. I found a friend out in his boat. He said he had been getting schoolies. Based on his input I fished the area and picked a half dozen, or so, and then the light rain turned into steady hard rain so I opted to call it a morning.