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| FishWire Coordinator: | Mark Cahill |
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| Gone Troppo
The title says it all...I'm on vacation. Two weeks during the year I am not at the beck and call of "the man." The problem so far has been, I've traded working for the man, to working for the woman. The honey do list, that veritable font of dissention in any house has raised it's ugly head. Now my problem is this: I want to fish. Badly. I don't have the slightest interest in pressure washing our siding (yesterday's chore) or in painting perfectly good pressure treated stair rails with white paint (todays chore). But I have discerned a method to this madness, and a sinister hand at work. And it is malevolently steering me away from my one true goal for vacation: fishing. Once again local anglers are learning why I call it tuna hunting, not tuna fishing. The fish are still in the bay, but as Capt. Derek notes, their isn't a concentration of bait to keep them in one spot for long. Have a great week - the weather looks fantastic! Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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Not a big problem though. Sunday I'll be headed out with Bob Parsons and the moderator crew from RT for some (hopefully)bonito action, then perhaps some bluefin next week. Sometime during the week I will need to take the girls to Water Country and then I want to get them on the water for their first bluefish. Not overly aggressive, but it's a plan.Boston Metropolitan Regions
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Boston Harbor
Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports: Yesterday, was a very slow day on the water for Sam Asaban and his parents who were visiting from Kuwait. We had to drag out the tubes in order to put a small keeper in the boat. August 15, 2004: On Saturday, I had the pleasure of taking Graham Thompson and his friend from Ireland, Eoghan Kosgrove, out for a morning of fly and light tackle fishing. It was an absolutely beautiful day with very light wind. Perfect for fly casting. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to find any fish on top or fishing structure by casting. I'm told the bluefish did come up in Quincy Bay and hour or so after the tide began to drop but by that time we were already at the dock. Nonetheless, the boys were game to troll the tube & worm on light baitcasting rods. We managed a handful of bass and one small blue, including Eoghan's keeper!
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August 18, 2004: Matt Chapman and Chad Borden joined me for a late morning, half day light tackle charter. Fortunately, a school of small blues and some larger bass came up on the flats a couple hours or so before the top of the tide. The blue were puking up butterfish. Once the tide slacked and the wind picked up, it was all over. Chad managed to fool a nice keeper bass on a white bucktail jig off the long porch.
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South Shore
Scottne had this report: 8/17 CCB sore thumb On the water late as I was lazy and wasn't thrilled about the clear skies that didn't happen. First fish was 37 pounds, 3 more from 32 to 36 within 45 minutes then it died for me. Watched a couple of younger guys whack them good for the next hour while I was dry. Sun came out and fish were back on my offerings. It was pretty much non-stop most of the day, largest fish was a solid 40+ pounder at 51", most were 30-37 pounds which makes them considerably bigger than the blitz of a week ago. Only a few under 30 pounds, and no shorts. Blues up to 17 pounds, most 12-14. Before anyone has a heart attack, all fish went back safely. One was eye hooked but I set it free anyway. Not one fish even needed reviving as I got them to the boat, on the clamp, photo, back in the water very quickly. Sorry for the semi-bad photos but I was a one man show today and the fish did their own thing.
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North Shore
Capt. Derek from First Light reports: August 19th- Well, Tuna Fever is definitely on a bit of a holiday. There are a few fish around, however, there is not enough bait to get the fish concentrated and feeding on the surface. The best activity for the school tuna seems to be way down in Cape Cod Bay and up north off of southern Maine. Neither place is wide open, but anglers are definitely getting shots into fish. Again, flies, small metals and poppers are working best. The one good thing is the fish are showing only 1 to 4 miles off shore. The only encouraging sign for Cape Ann is that we have started to mark large schools of bait offshore. The schools have been down 50-150’ and are not eating any sabiki rigs, which strongly suggests that they are bunker! Hurricane Charlie pushed in some very cool water around Cape Ann. The water temps dropped down to the high 50’s/ low 60’s which has been good for the striper fishing. The end of commercial season has also taken a bit of pressure off of the fish. Manchester harbor has been stuffed with 3-9” herring which have made for some very entertaining fishing in and around the rocks. The herring are very easy to catch on a sabiki rig and it is almost impossible for stripers to resist the live herring. We have also been live lining up off of Rockport and Gloucester where there have been some really big chomper blues. Once the sun gets a bit too high for the stripers these blues have kept things entertaining. Yesterday, I got word that the blues were not showing on the surface but I guess they were jumping on poppers cast in the area from the Salvages to the Londoner. We had some great chunk fishing over the weekend before the storm around Baker’s Island and the Gooseberry Islands with a whole mess of fish in the 30-40” range. The front side of Crane’s beach is still fishing OK. A couple of anglers this week had good to excellent fishing both on the fly and plug on the front side. A couple of fly anglers said the bait fishermen were taking some really nice fish just down from the swim area. The Ipswich, Rowley, and Parker rivers have also been fishing OK. Local Capt. Reilly McCue said he had phenomenal fishing up around the mouth of the Rowley River and Middle Ground on Tuesday. He said the fish were all up on top pounding 3-4” wide profile baits, either herring or peanut bunker. Most of the fish were in the 20-26” range, however, they did take some fish over 30”. It is just great to see all this bait up in the rivers and harbors. Well, that’s it for now. I think we all need to just sit tight and hope that bunker shows in the next couple of weeks and things should blow wide open. As always please feel free to call the shop or send me an email for an updated report. Take care, Capt. Derek (978)948-7004 derek@firstlightanglers.com Medburd reports: North Shore 8/17 AM too! Fished the outgoing tide this morning out of Ipswich river. Tossed around some sluggos and wildeye shads from daybreak till 9:00am. Caught a good number of fish....my buddy went to the fly and there were no takers...so went back to the LT... Soundking had this: 8/18 PM: a pretty sweet evening Fished tonight from 4 to about 9ish, and did a pretty good job given the seas and 20 kt winds. Managed to jig around 100-130 3-6 inch mackerel and herring right from my slip and had live chumming on the brain Pulled up to a schweet little eel grass bed inside salem sound in about 7 feet of water and started to live chum while drifting. About three handfulls overboard and some swirls started to show, and in went the mack daddy fly. From that spot about a dozen fish from 15-26 inches, just crushed them on that fly. Tried to sneak out to fish a rockpile in gloucester that I knew. And given the conditions for the past few days and tide, I had a feeling that I was going to absolutely slay the big fish with the bigger herring, but it was just too snotty, so I decided to try at the mouth of manchester and west beach. I am pretty pumped I stayed there. Well, as the wind flew down in between the islands, it pinned a massive school of BIG herring into a little cove, carnage is the only way to describe it, a pod of a handfull of very big bass started destorying baits. The bizarre thing is I couldnt buy a hit, like it was impossible to get these fish to hit. I fished them HARD too, tried every herring pattern I had, I even threw the live macks into them, nothing, snagged a 10 inch herring and pitched it in, nothing, nada. Really made me mad, but theres something special about watching swirls the size of tires and tail bases the thickness of my forearm going around, these fish were REAL big but REAL picky, it must have only been a few fish or something. As soon as the feed started, it ended like a light switch, pretty strange stuff but awesome to watch for 10 minutes or so. Kept on moving inside the harbor, and grabbed a mooring at the creek mouth and live chummed until just after dark, pretty easy fishing for schoolies, pretty much a fish every five or six casts until I almost got tired of catching them. By the way, if anyone would like to see some nice surface hits, rig a herring just behind the dorsal, and keep your rod high, the herring kicks around on the surface like a kite bait because of the line of pull...what a sweet sight to see a batallion of schoolies knocking around a bait way too big for them. Just a really fun night spent on the water, no huge fish caught but just clubbed the school bass on the fly and livies, which is always a great time. More and more bait showing up in the harbors fellas, we just need some warm water and we will be thigh deep in tunafish. Some of these baits are starting to get rather large as in 5-7 inches, and as soon as the wind lies down a little bit, oh man its gonna go wide open with the live chum in some rocks I have in mind to the northeast...can't wait. Thats it until next time! |
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The Merrimack River
Capt. Charlie Crue reports: Merrimack River Report #12 August 19, 2004 The Merrimack estuary area continues to have steady striper action. Most fish caught with flies or lures are small to mid size schoolies. They fight hard and provide strong action on light spinning gear or the long rod. The inshore blue fishing has slowed. Off shore the football tuna have been the attraction. I had a re-learning experience on Monday morning. I had a free morning and decided to enjoy some fishing with the thought of exploring Joppa flats on the high tide. I decided to put a jig on my lightest spinning rod and troll out onto the flats. My mistake was to assume that any fish would be small. About half way across the flats heading towards Woodbridge Island my rod bent like it was going to either break or the drag would let out line to keep the fish on. I cut the engine (second mistake) to fight the fish. That was when I discovered that I only had a few turns of 15# line left on the reel. Just as I reached to start the motor the fish made a surge. Bang! The fish lure and line were all gone in an instant. I tried to console myself thinking that sometimes it just happens but I still think about the trophy that I might have missed. There is a lot of bait in the river including sand eels and minnows (probably silversides). Olive white fly patterns have been working well. White soft baits on jig heads are good on the spinning gear. |