We spent all of our time this past week fishing the Merrimack River with some great striper action for the effort. On Monday Capt Al reported getting into some striper action upriver of rt1 but all of the stripers were schoolie sized and nothing larger than 22 inches.
I got out on Tuesday and was pleasantly greeted with a fresh school of keeper sized stripers feeding on a school of immature herring. The action was simply amazing for an hour or so, so amazing in fact, that it was literally impossible to retrieve a fly, soft plastic or topwater jumping minnow without a fierce take; striper paradise!
The best action occurred from the top of the tide and continued through two hours of the dropping tide. On Wednesday, in the pouring rain, Al and I headed out and quickly got into a repeat of Tuesday's action except that the action was even better and spread out across the entire flats; from Rings Island to the grass at Joppa. Same school of stripers and feeding on the small herring.
The stripers ranged in size from 25 to 33 inches with some bigger fish mixed as I can attest to the "one that got away" ( I'm only going to say don't tie flies on 1x wire hooks)! The cold front that popped through late Wednesday was not welcomed as the massive school of keeper sized stripers that were on the flats Tuesday and Wednesday, completely disappeared on Thursday, and we couldn't find them anywhere;
from the river mouth to well up river at Deer Island.My guess is that they pushed the bait way upriver or into the Plum Island backwaters. The guys I had out with me, however, did enjoy a great day landing more than 30 schoolie sized stripers (16-22 inches) on white weighed soft plastics, and all that in spite of that nasty northwest breeze that made for some challenging casting.
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The guys fishing at the Candy House last weekend and into mid week, reported slow fishing but some of the guy's were rewarded with a few keeper sized stripers on flies and soft plastics. The huge school of stripers that we had at the Merrimack must have bypassed the Annisquam completely as I did hear about some excellent action mid week just to the north in the Essex River backwaters.
The weekend ought to bring some renewed action in all area backwaters as the warmer weather should help heat up the action once again.
