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| FishWire Coordinator: | Mark Cahill |
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| Reflections on a Changing Landscape
This coming March will mark the 10 anniversary of Reel-Time (the veritable dawn of the Internet). It's funny when I think about it, as this whole thing still seems so fresh and alive... In that decade, though, we've seen a lot of change. When we started, saltwater fly fishing was all the rage and the sport was growing every year. New shops opened, while the established shops flourished. Many attributed that growth to "that movie...", you know, the one taken from Norman McLean's book. Indeed, at that point, it was as though our sport was new, as was the way we, Reel-Time, reported it. Now throughout Fly Fishing in general we are seeing a slow down in growth, which has been blamed for the closure of so many shops. Think of those which we in the Boston area have lost...Henry Weston's, Stoddards (one of the very first), Orvis Framingham, etc. This past winter, our Connecticut brethren lost the Fairfield Fly Shop, two years ago RI lost CoveEdge in Westerly (I truly miss John Prigmore...), and now in Texas, the Austin Fly Shop (you know the one that was featured in that old Visa ad) is going out of business (read about it here, at the Miami Herald- free subscription required). Personally, I believe that in all things change is inevitable. Those unwilling to adapt will go, just as the dinosaur, the dodo and the Model T. But more than that, I see a dynamic at work which assumes that fly shop owners are in some ways philanthropists. They are expected to give, but quite often, there is little offered in return. In the ray of hope department, First Light Anglers has settled into their new, expanded digs in Rowley. Speaking of people doing it right. Okay, my question to you is this..do we, as fly fishermen, bear the blame (either fully or in part) for the contraction in our industry? Has the Internet crippled the ability of shops to get a fair retail price? Let's here your thoughts in this thread on the RT Forum. On to the reports... Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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So what is going on? What's changing. The Austin Fly Shop attributes the slow down for them on (the perennial whipping boy) the Internet. They see many of their traditional customers shopping the store, but buying on EBay. At RT, we see a definite trend in that regard as well. Certainly, more Internet savvy shops are making in roads into Austin's customer base. After all, many of the smart shops like the Saltwater Edge do business all over the country today.Boston Metropolitan Regions
| NEWS |
| Here's a good article on fishing the Harbor Islands from the Brockton Enterprise |
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Boston Harbor
Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports: July 24, 2004: Charles Dean and his friends decided to brave the forcast and fish with me this morning. The day started out overcast and flat calm in the harbor. Alex quickly picked up a nice blue that took a bass assasin' in Quincy Bay and Tim had a schoolie striper. Charles followed up with a small blue and a few near misses before things got quiet. We headed to the flats off the July 23, 2004: Today, Mike and Nick Galluci from Ohio, joined me for a day of light tackle fishing. Although the brothers enjoyed their day on the water, the fishing was slow. A few bass and a couple of small blue were taken but we couldn't find the bigger bluefish on the outside. July 22, 2004: Earl Harper, freelance photographer and avid flyfisher from Seattle, WA was hoping to catch his first striped bass but willing to settle for at least one bluefish. It was a beautiful day on the water and Earl was happy just to be out in the Harbor. I was banking on the blues that have been in residence beyond the Outer Harbor Islands as the bass fishing has been slow. Although we coudn't find any bluefish (too late in the tide), Earl mananged a bunch of stripers on the fly. We found these fish busting bait on the flats @ one hour before low tide. And these were the first striped bass Earl had ever caught on the fly! Kayakninja had this on Tuesday... Blues invade Winthrop Beach Nice blues tonight in the cove between highlands and the five sisters. I knew it was only a matter of time with the east wind sending warmer water around here. the Teton drag was screaming. Blues tonight were various sizes. Mostly 5-7 pounders on the fly. Trolling the tube I found bigger. Slappy had this bit of good news from the harbor... Haba (Insert Howard Dean Scream here) 7/29 It is about time! It wasn't wide open, but the fish were feeding pretty aggressively very early (very dark!). Bass were gargling the 10" fin-s; just about every fish had the jig in the back of the throat. Good number of legal fish in the mix--up to 35". (of course that means all the others were 29). Blues got very aggressive at first light--they chewed up a lot of plastic today. Switched from plastic to the Tady and watched the blues chase it down just under the surface. Action was pretty consistent until around 7. Fish were spread out and I concentrated on 3 separate schools that I found. First stop was all small bass with a couple blues, second stop was almost all keepers, last stop was almost all blues. With the tide changes getting bigger over the next few days hopefully the bite will continue. All the fish came from shallow water, mostly less than 10'.
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July 29, 2004: The fishing has definitely picked up this past week with a mix of bass and blues in the Harbor. This morning we found bass in Hingham Bay and larger schools of blues on the outside in deeper water willing to take poppers and sliders. Great fun on the fly or light tackle!
airport just as the sky darkened and the rain began to fall. As the weather worsened, the fish started smashing our top water jerk baits on the Governor's side of the Long Pier. By 9:00 am the wind was blowing from the northeast at a good clip and it was raining buckets. By 9:30 we called it a morning but not before all three anglers caught a number of stripers, including one small keeper.
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South Shore
Word is out that the tuna have moved into the bay and a lot of the guys are headed out after them. ScottNE reports: Long day on the bay that started around 8am. Found fish right away, but they were the toothy variety. After 15 or so over the course of the morning and slow reports from most everywhere we made our way to deeper water. First drop was a 26# bass, over the next hour we boated many fish, all over 21# none over 30#. Just as suddenly as the bite turned on it was gone, over. Total for the day was 25+ fish, 15 blues the rest keeper sized bass. Bass are over dogs, if you're not careful with your tackle you end up getting a woofer...luckily we only managed one today Talked to a guy at the ramp that had been out since 5am in with the fleet and he noted the same thing...stunk until 3pm...3-4 it was gangbusters and then deadsville. Sometime this week I'll get all the photos up from the last week, got some nice action shots of the fish in the water today. The bass are still fairly active in Plymouth... Send in a report...
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North Shore
Derek at First Light Anglers had this report: North Shore Report: Bass, Blues and . . . . July 30th- Amazing as it may sound the fishing has remained good to excellent over the last week. There has been a great surface feed in Beverly Harbor almost every day since last Friday. The fish have been mostly schoolie sized fish other that when we fished last Saturday in the pouring rain and caught about a half dozen fish in the 30-36” class. The bait has been 3-6” herring, which we had some luck jigging with Sabiki rigs and tossing into the rocks. The rock fishing has remained relatively strong with some really nice fish still falling to the plug and fly. Fishing on Tuesday morning along the rocks at Gloucester Harbor and the back shore of Eastern Point we managed a bunch of schoolies, 3 or 4 fish in the 28-34” range and one beautiful 32lb bass all on the large 9” Slug-go. All of the fly rod fish over the last week or so have been mainly schoolies with a few fish in the mid to high twenties. It just seems like those big Slug-go’s trigger a strike, truly awesome. We have still been finding decent numbers of live Pollack around Straitsmouth and the Salvages/Breakwall area, which has been great for when the sun gets a little bright. Slowing trolling or casting these into the rocks has produced decent numbers of fish in the 25-35” class. Nat did manage on Wednesday morning to pull a nice 35lb fish out of the commercial fleet off of Gloucester. The commercial fleet continues to pick away at some decent fish; however the dogfish and bluefish are a bit savage. The fleet has been mainly a mile or so off of Eastern Point although the last couple of days they seemed to have moved a little closer and a more off of Hammond Castle and Magnolia. SoundKing had this on Wednesday... North Shore 7/28-solid for Late July Fished with e-sea-e last night around some rockpiles and found a steady pick of fish in the mid twenty inch class with one or two fish around the thirty inch mark. Fishing was much better than it has been lately last night, and I believe a few factors were in play. First, the decent wind was creating nice wave action, and hence good wash. Second, water temps were between 59-60.9, and I think that this also allowed fish to slide up into the rocks. Last, the low light coming in on the leading edge of a storm I think triggered a decent feed of fish last night. Roughly 25-30 fish landed from 5-8, 20 or so from rockpiles, and then another 5-10 fish from surface activity inside of salem sound. Only one bluefish caught from the breaking fish which is a good sign. Also, one of the funnier things of the night was when casting a baby zara spook to the fish, a decent 30 inch class bass cleared the water with the spook it its mouth! Never came tight on her, but that was awesome to see. Also e-sea-e caught a twenty inch bass that jumped....very bizarre behavior from these little guys. Also something to note is the abundance of spike mackerel. Anyone who has been around some 80 lb speedsters for a while knows that second to peanut bunker, spike mackerel is what you are looking for. Good signs, very good signs. I would give the spikes another two to three weeks to get into the position we want and the water temps to become what we want them to be. This is starting to take shape. Go out there and keep your eyes open! Tight lines, SK |
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The Merrimack River
Capt. Charlie Crue of Channel Edge Charters reports: I tried up river a couple of times but found little going on. The blues seem to have moved elsewhere. But, again my time on the water has been less so there may have been some good times that I missed. I took my “veteran” 8 year old grandson out on Wednesday after the rain quit. We started at the dock with some chunk herring around the high slack tide in the late morning. He caught a healthy 20-inch schoolie. We then went out to do some light spin fishing below the AYC mooring area. He caught 12 schoolies to my 7. We matched our largest at 20-inches each. They were hitting small white Fin-S rigged with jig heads. There were only a couple of other boats in the area. It was nice, quiet and enjoyable fishing. It was a good time for us to share our love for fishing together. Thursday morning the bluefish moved into the river. They were medium size, 5 to 8 pounds. We caught them outside the jetties and all the way up to |
The fishing has changed into the slow period with warm water and some stripers moving further north. Schoolies remain and provide some good action on flies and light tackle. My time on the water has been less than a few weeks ago but I confess it has been good to take a breather. A few days ago I had a little time and went out in the morning to catch the end of the outgoing tide. I caught and released a bunch of small stripers and then found some hitting bait in very shallow water. It was prime time to use a floating line and gurglers! I enjoy the hits on the surface. I was fishing the upper end of Joppa Flats.