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| FishWire Coordinator: | Mark Cahill |
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| For What It's Worth...
Here's your Boston Fishwire for the week. It should make interesting reading, but frankly, as Tropical Depression Frances is just clearing the area, I'm betting that it's more historical than a forecast of things to come. I expect that the low pressure and high winds of yesterday will probably jump start our fall season, so I'd plan accordingly. I know, the nay sayers among your are thinking "ah, he's just shilling for the shops and guides." Well, the truth is that when presented with a choice, I choose to fish. In the dim days of winter, we'll all be wishing we spent more days on the water, that we sprung for that one guided trip that would have given us that one memorable day. So when the frigid February winds frost your forehead, and your child sits on your lap and asks "Daddy, what did you do during the fall run?", you'll be able to proudly answer. "I fished my a** off..." Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...
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You see, it's that time of year, when the magic happens around here. We start seeing epic blitzes and even the lowliest of newbies can go out and have a banner day. It's not about carrying water for the Chamber of Commerce or firing up the tourists anymore (like it ever was for me). This is our time and we ought to use it. Boston Metropolitan Regions
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| After the winds and low pressure from TD Frances, my crystal ball is a little murky. Anything that happened in the past week is ancient history. Even so, there's a better than average chance that the storm kicked off some of the epic fall action the area is known for. Look for blitzes in normal fall spots. |
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Boston Harbor
Capt. Wayne Frieden of Reel Dream Charters reports: Saturday was a beautiful day weather-wise. For those anglers who got out early to fish the latter stage of the outgoing tide around Cohasset and North Scituate, you were greeted by blitzing bass pushing bait up onto the rocks. I was not one of the lucky ones as I decided to fish the incoming tide with my friend, Gayna. I did find some fish on top and was thrilled when Gayna landed her first striper on the fly! Hopefully, the first of many... Slappy reports: 9/7 Haba: 6 foot tide not much bait Yakked the harbor on tues am. I checked the tide chart, only a 6.5 foot tide--a bad omen. The fish were more spread out and there was little sign of feeding fish--of course it was dark, so maybe I just couldn't see them! The fish were there though. Action was steady to fast; it took me an hour and twenty minutes to get my scale samples from ten fish. The best fishing was around the low, but there was a steady pick through the tide as I moved around and found a new group of fish. Ended up with 20+ fish with about a dozen legal--legal fish were pretty much all between 30"-35". The smaller 23-26" fish were more abundant than previous trips. The big plastic helped reduce the number of small fish. I did switch to a 15" plastic and got 2 shorts and one legal on it--so size doesn't always help. Took a few casts with the fly rod. I saw some improvement in my skill, a couple casts went beyond the nose of the yak. Only got one hit on the fly. Poor fly selection: I would have done better with a much larger fly. I thought the fish might be feeding on peanut bunker so I had a small one on. There was really no sign of bait, a couple fish boiled but that was it. Has anyone kept any fish and checked their stomachs? I would imagine the fish in the rivers are eating herring fry, but what about the outer harbor? Most of the fish were very shallow, but I did graph a lot of stuff in about 15' of water. Looked like some kind of bait. Bottom bouncing a jig around these areas produced fish as well. Fishlips reports: Haba 'fishless' tour Launched at the Winthrop public launch at 5:45, 30 minutes after high tide and 30 minutes before sunrise... No wind, partyly cloudy skies, and it even smelled like fish but... not a breaking fish or diving bird on the entire, 20 mile haba tour. Fished some structure to no significant action and bagged it at 9am... So, beyond the beautiful morning and the fish 'tail of woe', the question is was there better in-shore, light tackle/fly action elsewhere? Debated last evening targetting Plymouth this morning but, since I live on the North Shore and the Big Dig makes towing the rig through the Financial District detours such a joy, I took the easy route to the haba. Was Plymouth, or anywhere else for that matter, hopping? Here's hoping for a fall blitz soon!
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September 9, 2004: This is normally the time when we start seeing blitzes of schooling bass and blues as they begin to feed heavily prior to their migration south. We're waiting to see evidence of peanut bunker as well. There have been sporadic blitzes reported on the south shore and we're probably days away from this action in the Boston area. I am back to my full time job at Duxbury High and as such am relegated to charter fishing on weekends.
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South Shore
Stripers to 30lbs in the Bay, bluefish along the beaches, Plymouth, Deluxbury and the North River are starting into full blown fall mode. Powderpoint Bridge, Brown's Bank, the MaryAnns will all be spots to pay attention to. As far as SBFT go, this comment from ScottNE says a lot "Chatter on 68 would lead you to belive the tuna were attacking passing boaters looking to beach themselves on their decks." The truth is, they're passing through about every third day, if I'm reading it right. Now, figuring out which is the third day, that's the problem...
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North Shore
Capt. Randy Sigler of Sigler Guide Service reports: As always seems to happen at this time of year, we scratch our heads wondering why in heck all this bait is not getting slaughtered by bass and bluefish. Invariably one day right around now, a switch is flipped and all heck breaks loose. We have seen some scattered surface action, most notably in Salem Harbor in the mornings. Generally these have been bass in the 22” – 27” range, but we have seen several very good size “trailers” following in hooked fish. Bluefish have been pretty consistent from halfway rock, down towards tinkers, and off towards Egg rock. The birds will lead you to the Promised Land. Any day now, the Devereaux area should get hot. So far we’ve seen only sporadic surface action, but in the near future, this area, down towards Preston Beach should be a “go to” area. As for us, we’ve been doing a good deal of live bait fishing. The fly rod action along the rocks has dropped off considerably, while the live bait fishing has been red-hot. As has been typical all year, not many truly large fish (40+ inches), but the steady action with fish in the mid-30 inch range has made for some great trips. The kids, in particular, benefit from this action, as you rarely need to wait more than a couple of minutes for that next hit. The small tuna have been absent, but we are hoping for a reappearance similar to their early August visit. These passing storms tend to move things around a bit, and often bring in the bait and the big fish. We’ll see what happens. As far a scheduling, I’m pretty well booked for all of September (have a couple Tuesdays and Thursdays open), but October is still pretty open. Some of the best fishing of the year is invariably had in early October. As always, give a ring (888-359-5463) or drop an email (randy@striper.com) if you need more detailed info or would like to inquire about availability. Sincerely, Randy Sigler Jstump reports: Essex River 9/7 Fish, but slow Went out at 3:30 and found fish and birds feeding on the surface right away in the Castleneck at the Trustees dock area. Caught 3 nice fish on poppers. That lasted about 10 - 15 minutes then they just disappeared! Spent about a half hour looking for them, they had to go somewhere, but didn't find them. Decided to fish the usual spots that in past years have been very productive but nothing was going on. High tide was around 6:30 and we found them again in the same spot, caught 1. They were back on the surface, we threw out poppers and it spooked them immediatly and they quit hitting anything on the surface . Switched to jigs and sluggos got a couple of hits but none landed. They were definetly very picky and spooked. I'm guessing they may have stayed right in that corner the whole tide and just ate when they felt like it. Still a real nice afternoon/ evening on the water. |
Things are certainly happening in the Salem Sound area. All of the harbors are loaded with bait, including 2” – 7” long herring (both Atlantic and blueback), finger and spike mackerel, 2” – 4” silversides, as well as the ubiquitous juvenile menhaden (A.K.A. Peanut Bunker). There are probably several other species, but these are what I have seen the most of.  |
The Merrimack River
Merrimack River Report # 15 September 9, 2004 Well, it is the time of the season when fishing conditions change. We will soon have the experience of migrating stripers moving south ahead of our wintertime. It can be a great time for striper fishermen. Usually we find that the baby bunker lead the action as the larger migrating stripers return from their northern migration into Maine waters. Sunday was a bright day and the fishing slowed. My clients caught some schoolie stripers but that was all. Since it was Labor Day the boat traffic didn’t help the fishing. The mouth of the river was treacherous on the out going tide so fishing was inside only. A few football tuna have been caught by fishermen with boats at my marina. I had a report of good bluefish action off of Halibut Point. Cranes Beach area has been hot with stripers chasing bait up to the beach. The fish were close to keeper size. We had a rare occurrence on Newburyport Harbor when a small young whale followed a sailboat into the AYC mooring area. It was reported to be Beluga whale. They normally stay in the colder waters of the Atlantic off the coast of Canada. Apparently it has been spotted in other harbors and including Kennebunkport, Maine. |
Over the weekend we caught lots of stripers in the Merrimack estuary. Most were schoolies but some 20 pound fish have been caught. I hosted my son and grandson over the holiday weekend. They caught lots of schoolies ranging from 18 to 27-inches. My grandson caught a 10 pound bluefish between the jetties, last Saturday. He did it all, including fighting it to boat side, after which grandpa brought it on board for them to enjoy for dinner.