Left the dock @ 6:00am with that famous Merrimack River surfcaster Doug "Bass Assasin" Burgess (> 1800 fish this season), along with another guy with a fly rod. Beautiful morning with the sunrise over the water. Fished the mouth of Ipswich Bay where the Parker, Ipswich, Rowley, and Eagle Neck Rivers join as one and dump out the mouth. The only action to report on was bass up to 27.99" (didn't keep or tag it) on chunk herring. Guys were fishing around us with live mackeral and pollack, but they had no hookups. At least we were kept busy with fish on every drift, mostly two hookups at a time for the 3 of us on board. Saw Al Williams (the No. Shores' most famous fisherman big bass guru) fishing live pogies at Steep Hill, but to no avail. Where does he get those live pogies?
My brother's boat trolled tube&worms up along the beachfront and took some bass, but no keepers. He saw one tin boat hook up a fish over 30" when the boat was only 10 feet off of the beach on the high outgoing tide. Hmmmm, might have to try that some day. Or some of you flyfishers could walk and cast the beach rather than camping out in one spot below Steep Hill. Worth a try!
Hooked up bluefish after bluefish after bluefish about one mile straight out of the Essex River. Did not get out to Halibut Point today. The blues took poppers & minnows readily. My buddy tried with flies on a Teeny 350 while I used a uniform fast-sink. Couldn't "buy" a blue with the flies - go figure.
Ran back out to the same spot about 2:00pm on Saturday afternoon with the wife and three of her friends; 2 gals, one guy. Caught more blues @ the same waypoint as we caught them in the morning. If I trolled or drifted more than 1/2 mile away from the waypoint - no fish - everytime I headed or setup a drift thru the waypoint - fish on, doulbleheaders on every pass. The crew had a blast to say the least, one gal didn't want to leave!
What's curious about this waypoint is that there's NO structure there. The water depth was 20', again about one mile straight out of the mouth of the Essex on a heading for the Isle of Shoals. If any Reel-Timers want the waypoint coordiniates, email me. I am guessing that the water depth 7 temp, along with the way the currents were flowing off of Coffin Beach towards the Essex must have been holding the fish in there.