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| FishWire Coordinator: | Mark Cahill |
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| Use Your Head
Boating safety is probably the last thing on our minds when we start to plan a fishing trip. There's all the excitment of getting the rods ready, packing the lunches, etc. But all too often we set out with outdated flares, useless, rotted life preservers (if we have them at all), and no radio or cell phone. The problem we, as fishermen, have, is we tend to collectively think we've got the biggest, brassiest balls around. Put up against the ocean, we don't even come close. Still, a lot of dumb decisions get made based more upon I've covered safety enough times that I get tired of writing it. Still we have incidents like last weekend when a pair of kids got swamped in a 15ft sailboat of Manchester-by-the-sea in 3-6 foot seas. It cost one of them his life. Capt Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters sees this type of problem on the waters of Boston Harbor all the time, and passed along these tips: With the ever increasing popularity of fly and light tackle fishing we're Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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machismo than on clear thinking. Perhaps the most important thing we bring with us when we head out on the water is common sense, and it's a quality that's all to often in short supply.
ind. Mostly, safe
Always carry enough PFD's for all passengers and a safety ring and line.Boston Metropolitan Regions
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As predicted last week, the bigger fish have started to move in and chase the mackeral. This is one of the best times to be fishing off eastern Mass, so get out and get them. Also, some north shore anglers have started picking up bluefish. A nice mixed bass/blue blitz was reported Wednesday night in the Essex. The lawn can wait...get out there! |
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Boston Harbor
June 10, 2004: Fishing has slowed this week and it may be that the weather changes have been a factor. As the weather pattern stabilizes I'm hopeful will see another cgarge of fresh fish in the harbor. June 5, 2004: Alex Felix and his friend Erik joined me for a morning of fly fishing and I have to admit the fishing was tough. The school of big bass I found the day before were no where to be found and we had to work hard (mainly fishing rocky structure) to find a handful of small fish. There were brief "flurries" in the anchorage but nothing sustained. Happy to say Erik did catch and release his first striper on the fly. How sweet it is! BTW, folks are still finding a good amount of mackerel (chumming is the key) and although yesterday was not great for many anglers who were livelining, a 40# bass was taken on a live mack outside the harbor. Charlie Devens (see the June picture in your Reel-Time calendar) reports: My latest saltwater fishing was last week. I put in a report But I have a friend who has been jigging macks out off of Graves and On my walks home from work back to Charlestown I have continued to see Have thrown the fly down below there a bunch of times but have been
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Capt. Wayne Frieden reports:
June 4, 2004: I had the pleasure of taking Leighton Patrick and his friends Edel and Mike along for an afternoon light tackle trip in the harbor. It was a beautiful day and a memorable one in my fishing journal. On a tip, I ran outside to Broad Sound where we found lots of working birds and large bass up to 30#. Edel had never fished before, ever! I mentioned to Leighton and Mike that I hoped they had strong egos as generally speaking women, and novices to boot, usually catch more and larger fish. No problem, mate! Most of the fish caught and released were keeper bass and taken on 1/2 oz buctails and jigs with 5" Bass Assassin's on 12# test light spin tackle. Incredible afternoon on the water...
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South Shore
The word from last weekend was small fish in the North River. To the south, Duxbury Beach should be starting to heat up, but the reports aren't showing it. Nothing else from the South Shore. Send me a report.
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North Shore
Capt. Derek Spingler of First Light Anglers had this report: June 10th- Salem Sound and the rocks up to Gloucester have been loaded with lots of little fish. Fishing the whitewater has produced many schoolies and a few legal fish. The mackerel were in thick all around Cape Ann until Tuesday night when they seemed to evaporate from the area. The only good news is they have been replaced by thousands of small Pollack. We have found some bigger fish down along the Marblehead to Nahant shoreline with a good amount of schoolies mixed in as well. The rocks from Gloucester to Rockport have fished OK but we have found the action better to the south. There is a decent body of big fish out in 80-120’ of water from Milk Island to Halibut Point that the live liners are targeting. The Essex and Ipswich rivers have been fishing well again for mostly smaller fish. It seems that a large body of bigger fish pushed into the Merrimack on Tuesday with banner reports coming from anglers bragging of thousands of legal fish at the mouth and on Joppa. Unfortunately, there has also been an outrageous amount of boats fishing and tempers have been flaring!! Oddly, we have received a number of reports of bluefish at the mouths of the Ipswich and Essex Rivers as well as the groaner off Gloucester. I would imagine the fishing well only improve with this warmer weather and decent dawn and dusk tides. We have yet to see any large surface feeds but this is the time of the year when the herring are dumping out of the rivers and the mackerel should still be around, so any day it could happen. As always, I will try and keep you posted if there are any banner feeds occurring. For now, I would just keep pounding the rocks! Good luck, Capt.’s Derek & Nat (978)948-7004 derek@firstlightanglers.com Capt. Randy Sigler of Sigler Guide Service reports: This week, the bass have been getting bigger and more numerous. Salem Harbor has given up a handful of fish in the 30” – 36” range on the fly rod, which is surprising for this time of year. We have also caught a few small bluefish on the fly rod. This morning, we had a very unique mix of bass, shad and bluefish on the fly rod. It was quite fun to actually wonder what you’ve hooked … rather than simply wondering about the size of the bass that you’ve hooked.The flyfishing in the rocks is still solid, and should be for weeks to come. With so much rocky shoreline, there is always a new pocket to fish, and a stretch that works in any given weather condition. The Manchester and Swampscott areas have been nice during the Northeast blows that we have had. Bakers and Childrens Islands as well as Peachs Point have provided nice cover for the Southwesterlies that have been frequent. And, of course, Maddies Sail Loft has been the place to be when the due Easterly kicks in. Sincerely, Randy Sigler |
It is looking like we might finally get a stretch of nice weather for fishing. I., for one, am longing for the flat, warm, quite mornings of summer. This cold, damp wind is getting on my nerves.
The mackerel are holding on strong, though we end up releasing far more than we keep for live bait. This is because most of the mackerel are of the “Donkey Kong” variety, meaning the big 1 – 2 pounders. I would love to have some of these bruisers show up in mid-July, but right now, the most effective size baits are the 6 – 10 inchers. Though most people these days are slow trolling the live baits, I get much more of a kick from anchoring up and fishing the baits under a float. The commotion that ensues when the bait is getting chases is too much fun to miss. The slow trolling might be a bit more effective, but the visual reward is far greater when still fishing.I haven’t had a chance to codfish this week, so unfortunately, I can’t report on how they are holding up. But anytime you want, I’ll go chase them. Gotta go, my schedule is busting at the seams. Drop an email (  |
The Merrimack River
Capt. Charles Crue of Channel Edge Charters reports: Merrimack River Report #3 June 10, 2004 Monday morning my clients caught lots of schoolies off of the sand bar. They were hitting jigs.Bird activity, over feeding stripers has been rare. However, one day last week there was a large school of schoolie stripers at the upper end of Joppa that attracted the terns for a half hour or so.We had two days of high heat in the area. The first one, Tuesday I caught up on yard work. The second, I had a charter. It was bright and very warm. The striper activity was slower, probably due to the bright sky. My client caught a few fish on spinning rigs but the whole morning did not produce the usual fish. As I write this a front is pushing through dropping air temperatures from the mid-nineties. Tomorrow morning will be different weather so we will see what happens with the fishing. Tune in next week! |
The action, with big fish, took off this week. Joppa Flats produced big stripers early in the week. The action slowed later in the week. Wednesday and Thursday produced lively action with catches up to 40+inches. My California client, Jonathan, caught and released a 41-inch, 21 pound striper that took a well presented custom deceiver type fly on June 3. The fishing was slow on Friday morning with clear bright sky. The afternoon was very good on Joppa Flats. I fished with my client and caught and released a 31-inch striper. I also had a tremendous hit where the fish cut me off before I could react (even guides mess up sometimes). Saturday a north wind prevailed and the fishing slowed dramatically.
Sunday the action returned. The early morning outgoing tide produced many schoolies off the sand bar at the north end of Plum Island. A friend caught a couple of keepers just after the morning low tide. Later there were large stripers out on the flats according to a report given to me by a reliable source. Some big stripers are returning from chasing herring up the river and can be found in the estuary area. The weather was wet and cool but the fishing has been good to excellent.I saw a seal out on Joppa Flats the other day. They are usually down by Plum Island and don’t move onto the flats. It must be the bait or small stripers that he was chasing.Offshore fishing must be good. I saw a fisherman hoist a couple of very large haddock to show a friend in another boat.