Sept. 1 wasn’t exactly the magic bullet many of us were hoping for. Pretty much this report could be the same as I offered last week. Yes, there are fish, both bass and blues, but the numbers of fish that inshore fishermen are finding are very low. Paul Cuzzupe summed things up well in an email the other day:
I have been fishing boston harbor for 15 years(mostly flyfishing) and can’t recall a late August orearly Sept. fall run staging as strange as this one. I agree with what you say, there is so much bait and so few fish threatiening them that the bait is having its way with the harbor.
He’s convinced, as I am, that even though we’ve got tons of bait around, if the fish remain offshore, they’ll just start the migration from there. It may work for the Cape guys, but that pattern leaves the Boston fishermen out in the cold. He continues with a report from last week:
Last Friday, I did hit some pods of bass off of Nahant feeding on krill , and my buddy & I threw shrimp and very small epoxy sand eels and did very well for about 2 hours. The fish would sound then come back up in a formation, we would get 2-3 cast off each time usually with a fish taking the fly very lightly. I went out last night and found tons of birds at Spec., tons of pogies,and silversides, very few fish. I had some friends onboard and managed 2 blues and 1 bass(same girl caught all 3).
The ray off sunshine I’m seeing right now is that the heavy weather from Hannah, even if it’s a miss, might just be the key to push the fish inshore, or at the very least trigger them to fall into a more traditional fall pattern. Big waves offshore may help to break up the bait and cause them to move inshore. Not great news for the tuna guys, but a welcome prospect for the inshore crew.
Reports are sparse this week. As usually happens at this time of year, many of our regular correspondents aren’t on the water as much. The funny thing is, the reports become that much more important to us, so be sure to share the information, even if you need to be less specific about the exact area you’re fishing.
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Mark N. Cahill has been writing and editing for Reel-Time.com since 1995. He started fishing in the mid-1960's and caught his first striper off World's End in Hingham in 1966. From there on in it was an obsession. He loves fishing for tuna, and fly fishing for striped bass. In a pinch, anything with fins will do...
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