Boston
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June 25th, 2004

"Conventional" Wisdom

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There's a lot of unwritten rules to saltwater fly fishing. You have to use fluorocarbon for tuna, because their visual accuity is so good, stripers won't feed during the day in the summer. That kind of stuff. The problem is, no one ever bothered to tell the fish.

I was fishing with Peter Patricelli and a couple of his friends from Eugene, Oregon last weekend. One of the fellows, Dick, has developed a reputation for breaking the mold. If you tell him that only fluoro will work on ablies in NC, he'll fish fluoro and more often than not, prove you wrong. Fishing with him brought up the question in my mind: how much of the stuff that we "know" about striper fishing is really just our own attempt to rationalize that which we have seen. How often are our assumptions wrong.

Think about it, there really aren't a lot of rules. Most of that which we know is purely anecdotal. I caught a fish on a chartreuse and white clouser, therefore the fish are primarily interested in chartreuse and white. But what if the difference between you catching fish and your buddy, who's not, isn't the color of the fly at all, it's actually that his retrieve is slightly different. Or maybe his fly is keeling or spinning. Maybe he had motor oil or suntan lotion on his hands when he handled the fly. Maybe they're just keyed in on something at your end of the boat, etc. While we may think we know what's going on with the fish, we can never be sure.

In our sport, one plus one does not always equal two. It does not lend itself to being reduced to a forumla for success. That's probably one of the things that endears the sport to so many of us. It's also one of the reasons that it's not the right sport for a lot of people. In golf, you can rest assured that you will definitely get to hit the golf ball during your round. But in fly fishing, who knows it the fish will cooperate.

What "rules" do you think are full of it? Discuss it in this thread on the RT Forum...

How to Screw Up a Fishing Trip

We definitely had some great stories in this thread on the RT forum discussing last weeks column. I guess the punchline of the story is that with the right attitude, short of getting someone killed or maimed, nothing can screw up a fishing trip. It's all part of the experience and in many cases, even if you don't laugh at the problems now, you probably will in the future.

On to the reports...

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 checks in with this bit:

June 24, 2004: I had the pleasure of taking Len Zir for his first saltwater fly rod adventure. Shortly after first light we found small fish on the surface pushing up herring in the bay. Len managed to catch and release a few stripers and broke off a better fish before things quieted down. We decided to fish structure in Quincy Bay but marked very few fish and didn't hook up. Headed south to fish structure and found a small school of nice fish in 30 -40 feet of water. It was a FAC day for most of the morning until the east wind kicked up but by then we were headed back to the barn. There were reports of fish caught to the north and all the fish we caught has sea lice (a good sign). So, it looks like the fishing (and the catching) is picking up.

June 23, 2003: Calvin Hazelwood and his wife, Amy, on vacation from Bozeman, Montana fished with me today. At first light, Calvin began the day with a healthy bass on the fly as we fished structure in the bay. There was a brief flurry of working birds and we managed a couple more before the action died. As the tide was falling fast, we decided to head south and fish the rocks where a bunch of smaller fish were caught and released. We finished the day on the flats and yes Amy finally caught her first bass on a fly.

June 22, 2004: Fished the BOMA Tournament today along with about 17 other boats and a total of over 70 anglers. The weather cooperated but the tournamnet didn't get going until close to the bottom of the tide. Since this was a "light tackle" catch & release tournament, most charter captains (aside from those who were livelining or chunking) found the fishing was on the slow side. I managed to put my sports on some small fish as the tide began to come but nothing to brag about. Yesterday, I had the pleasure (as always) of guiding Kevin Cheevers who fly rodded up a number of schoolie bass but no keepers. Actually, the only keeper landed and released was by yours truly as Kevin invited me to fish along with him. The 28" bass made a good showing on the fly rod and was released to fight another day.

Dryfly reports that a new slug of fish moved into the Harbor...

Boston Harbor 6/23 pm

Dropping tide, birds everywhere from castle island to deer island, stripers chasing dropbacks on the flats and the deep edges, 10 inch herring flies were the trick, low or high in the water column didn't matter, all fish were decent with large mid 30 inches to small of mid 20's. fish were covered in sea lice- looks like a large school of nice fish has moved in- marked fish constantly all night.

Of course, things change. Capt. John Mendelson reports the following day:

Boston 6/24 am

Out this morning. Very still. Marked fish in areas mentioned but they were once again finicky. Took a fish here and there but it was by no means gangbusters...

 

Captain Rob Savino  C.J. Victoria fishing Charters.  The fishing in Boston Harbor and the islands are a hit or miss.  The fish today were very finicky.  Plenty of hits with some nice fish hitting chunk bait then letting it go.  We hooked up 2 - 30" stripers and a couple of small ones.  We missed several very big fish that were pulling drag well past the srike point.  This is an indication to me taht they must have been 40" plus fish 25 lbs or more.  Lost both as they are not slamming the baits.
My guess is that the fish are not in heavy so the competition for bait is low and the fish can be pickey.  When the fish come in in more numbers the bites will be more intense, any day now.  Please email me with any info or questions at robsavino@cjvictoria.com

South Shore

Bassbuster had this report:

6/19, 6/20 Dux. Bay / Plymouth

Fished the ealy fog Sat. for couple barely keepers on the bottom channels. Ran out front to see if their was any activity and decided to try for some cod and found large dogs and sea robins. Moved to High Pines to find a nice bite going and picked up 4 cod (8 - 12 lbs) with many more shorts mixed in. A fluke even picked up one of the rigs.
Went out Sun in the howling wind with my wife and two oldest boys. Original plan was early run to the Race for fishing then afternoon on the bank whale watching (and what the heck might as well troll while were out there, I was saving that part for when we got there). The wind ruined that plan, so it was in the bay for stripers. First pass the oldest gets a nice fat 34", next pass my six year old gets a nice one taking line, I'm holding the pole he's reeling like crazy, he catches on after some coaching that when the fish runs it's time to rest and keep the line tight and battles it in with a few more runs then we boat a nice 38" 20 lber. The grins were priceless. The next pass my wife hooks on to a nice one as well a couple inches smaller. She mentions that was a lot of work, I said yes remember that some afternoon when I try to sneak a cat nap in. Next was my turn, the tide changed as so did the fishing. I didn't get my turn but it was a GREAT fathers day.

 

Fishing Report - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 12 Fly Rod Stripers This Morning...

- June 24, 2004 - 1:50 PM

BAYMEN Fishing Report - Thursday, June 24, 2004
www.baymenoutfitters.com (781) 934-2838

Hard fly fishing again today on Duxbury bay. We ended the morning with 12 bass, the magic number it seems, for the last three days in a row...

We did find a large pod of stripers, about sixty, that we could see and count as they swam by. We set up numerous drifts on the schooled bass and hooked up about a dozen fish. All the fish we caught were shorts, but we did see three or so keepers to about 31" inches.

On our way out, we found a few schools of bass "finning" on top-water. My guess is they were on a worm hatch. We tried to hook up, but they would not take our patterns. Later, once we found the big school of stripers, the fly patterns that worked best were Capt. Dave's BAYMEN Universal tied as a half/half, and Stan's chartreuse/white deceiver-type pattern. Even so, these fish drove us crazy because they were so finicky. They would follow our flies, ten fish at a time. Every so often, one bass would make the move and inhale it. Most times, they would not.

We fished three other spots this morning with no hook-ups. At one spot, another boat was there and drifted for a half-hour without ever shutting his motor off. Go figure...? At our last spot, we did have a couple of follows and hits, but no more hook-ups. No blues.

POWDER POINT BRIDGE REPORT
There was excitement at the PPB yesterday, as several schooled bass were caught on chunk mack. Buy the BIG, BIG thrill was when 10 year old "Nick" hooked up onto something really BIG! In fact, Santa, who witnessed the whole thing said the fish was SEVEN FEET LONG!!! SHARK!!! As Nick fought the fish and it rolled on the surface, Santa had wild ideas of gaffing the thing with his bridge gaff and fighting the fish ashore. Santa ran for his gaff, but before he could return, the monster fish broke Nick's line... God knows, I wish Santa got that fish gaffed and dragged ashore. "The King Of The Bridge" would of pretty much gone down in history for that one! Santa reports several bluefish at the PPB this morning as well.

COMMERCIAL STRIPED BASS SEASON - One Week Away
With commercial fishing season only one week away, anglers are getting pretty tight lipped about any corkers they are landing in the bay and elsewhere. If any good schools of commercial fish are discovered, they are immediately down played. The regs last year were 40 bass per boat per day/night, until the Massachusetts State Quota of 1 million pounds of stripers sold at market is met. When the commercial season opens, anglers can gross as much as $4,000 the first day or two, when the market price soars. After that, the price typically bottoms out and gross is cut down to $1,000 per day. This assuming you FIND fish and you CATCH fish and land your LIMIT each day of the commercial season. Very, very few anglers do. Stay tuned for commercial striped bass fishing updates and best wishes to all those heading out.

FLOUNDER REPORT
Several BAYMEN anglers reporting decent catches of winter flounder in the local bays. Sea clams or seaworms are the preferred bait, rigged on a flounder spreader. All flounder catch reports we have received are from boats.

FLUKE REPORT
They are hear, but no reports from the flukers willing to divulge any information. If you can get live tinker mackeral out front, you have the best fluke bait there is. A good second choice is mackeral belly strips, squid strips, clams, seaworms, or belly strips from other keeper fluke. We have a custom fluke rig here at BAYMEN if you need tackle.

STRIPER REPORT UPDATE
The overall consenses is the bass are about half of what they were in our bay last year in the spring. I'm talking top-water blitzing stripers here. The BIG corkers are here and those that know how to catch them are continuing to do so as in previous years. But the fly and light tackle top-water fishing is down by about 50% this season, as far as the spring blitz goes. South of us, in Buzzards Bay, they have been having the incredible spring fishing that we normally experience in Duxbury bay. Well, spring is long gone, and its big bass with their bellies on the bottom time now... We will see what is in store for the late summer/fall top-water blitz. Last year, it was nothing short of spectacular that makes our waters legendary striper waters.

North Shore

 First Light Anglers had this report...

June 23^rd- The fishing did nothing but improve over the course of last week and up until Sunday afternoon. Those cool northwest winds seemed to just shut down the rock fishing. Everyone I have talked to and most of my charters were slow in the rocks Sunday evening through Tuesday. In the end we resorted to fishing some live bait and catching some very nice fish, including the one pictured which 38” and 27lbs., quite a fish at age 14!! It was nice to see some good surface action in  Salem Sound up until Sunday afternoon, just wish it lasted longer. I have to imagine that these next couple of days of south winds should do some justice for the rocks.

 

I think the best news is that Nat found a nice school of fish down off of Boston Harbor this morning. His clients first cast took a 43” beauty with a handful of other fish in the mid 30’s. The feed was short but when they are up on those big herring you  just know the fish are going to be large. I just hope it continues. I know where I will be looking over the next couple of days!

 

The river fishing, other than the Merrimack, has slowed way down. There have been small bluefish up in the Castleneck river and a few schoolies scattered around but no major activity. There just does not seem to be much bait present. I am hopeful that we will get another push soon as the front side of Crane’s Beach should be heating up. Well, I am going to keep the report short and sweet and I will try and keep you posted on the outside of Boston reports. Take care, Capt. Derek (978)948-7004 derek@firstlightanglers.com

 

The Merrimack River

Capt. Charlie Crue reports from the Merrimack, where things have been very hot of late...