| May 28, 2007 |
| The Cape Ann fishing has been heating up of late. The ocean side water temp is still a bit cold but the stripers have show in good numbers. The fish range in size from skunks on up to 30+ inches. The several reports I have show fish on many of the local beach areas; Pebble, Good Harbor, Back Beach, Coffin, Cranes and around many of the small reefs and islands. Candy House flat at Little River was hit or miss last week; some really good days while other days were a bit slow with a mix of sizes up to 25+ inches.
But the super action can be found up at the Merrimack River. From last Monday through the holiday weekend, Al, Dave and I recorded an estimated 400+ hook ups! We released a few keeper sized fish pushing 30 inches. We found fish from the rivers mouth (we saw good bird action working sand eels at the North Jetty) all the way up river as far as the 95 bridge (that’s as far as we have gone). One thing that we all noticed was how plump or stocky most of the fish were. This is probably an indication of the health of the stripers as well as their forage. I have not as yet heard of any really large stripers up this way but have it on good info that bigger fish are on the way! Most of our hook ups were on fly tackle but we had very good action on soft plastic jerk baits as well. We have not had the opportunity to throw top water plugs as yet….we’ll try them this week. I expect the action to continue strong with the approaching full moon on June 1. Look for bigger fish on the rising tides on Joppa flats and the area beaches.
  Also got out Saturday with Bart Waldo and a couple of his friends for groundfish and had an unforgettable day....we took 46 keeper haddock and 1 keeper cod well offshore. 
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