Massachusetts Fishing Charters salt water fly fishing reports

North Coast AnglerFishing Reports

July 2, 2007

Merrimack River Report

The striper fishing on the Merrimack is beginning its normal summertime pattern with the best bite happening on the flats at night. Live eels in the flats or cut bait in the channel areas near the 13 can as well as the Badgers and rivers mouth will produce some large stripers. Dave B. and Gerry Crete had a pretty good Monday late afternoon last week. Each of them landed several good sized stripers up to 36”. They were fly casting the rising tide at Joppa just off the 13 can. The stripers were fresh off the ocean side, plump and hard fighting. The best action occurred just before sundown.

Capt Al Montello’s report; Steve Defrank, pictured below, fished hard with me for three days and we had fair success fishing mostly on the flats. After a slow morning tide on Saturday, I invited Steve and his fishing partner, Rich Michaud, out to fish the evening rising tide on Joppa. The big fish began to show about an hour before the top of the tide. After fishing over the many swirls of big bass, Steve tied on an 8 inch long “Al’s Special”. After making several casts, he hooked up to a big fish that ran 100 plus yards into his backing and just spit the hook. Two casts later Steve hooked up on another big bass and after a 20 minute "give and take", boated a 38” fatty. His friend Rich had trouble hooking up and our guess was that Rich was throwing a fly with an intermediate line. The reality is that even though the water we were fishing on was 5 feet deep, getting the fly near the bottom is important because the fish at certain times are looking down not up. A few minutes later, Steve came tight on to a catapulting huge fish whose tail came down hard just as if it were a whale. The striper ran Steve deep into his backing several times and after 30 minutes of fighting the striper, I was able to lip the big bass with my Boga.The fished measured out at 43 inches and pinned out the Boga at 25(+) pounds, truly a fly rod trophy class fish. The picture says it all. Steve is an excellent fly fisherman and worked hard; he deserved those fish. The fishing in the flats is hot and cold; but you don’t know if you don’t go. Tight lines, Captain Al.
Al also reports that the annual crab hatch on the flats has begun. The crab hatch should help hold and draw in fresh stripers for awhile, but keep in mind that the best bite will be during the nighttime tides or at sunset or sunrise.

Cape Ann Report

Last Tuesday morning, while cruising down the Plum Island beach on my way back to Rockport, I made a stop at Emerson Rocks. I was happy to find an abundance of 20-25” stripers eager to take a well cast fly. I hung around for about an hour before continuing down to Halibut Point and finally to my slip at White Wharf.
I finally found some time on Friday afternoon to check out the fishing in and around the Rockport coastline and islands. And to my very pleasant surprise, I caught stripers at every stop I made; Gap Head, Straightsmouth south side and Milk Island cove. All and all, I hooked better than a dozen stripers from 20-29 inches. All of the stripers were dark, full bellied and some still had sea lice. I fully expect the striper fishing to continue to be real good and look for bluefish at Halibut point in the morning and late afternoons. I have not seen much bird activity but have on good report that there is a lot of baitfish in the area. Water temps are varying daily in the range of 57 to 63. I expect to get out a few times this week and check out some of the other coastal areas on down to Gloucester.

From Porter B;
I fished Goose Cove today, chumming and sight fishing in the slick ready to drop back a rigged full herring to a big bass. Had about 15 20" / 26" fish in the slick for about 2 HRS straight, with at least 1 or 2 28"/32" fish in there too, had two big fish slice through one 15 pounds and the other about 25 pounds ( 40" ) which I did end up hooking and fighting for about 3 or 4 minutes but then broke-off , I didn’t land a lot of fish cause most of the time I was just chumming and waiting for a nice cow to come by, but I did end up landing 3 keeper size fish in the 30" range and a few smaller fish....try to get out more to get more reports and try to find SOMONE to come out to take some pics !!!!(Anyone want go?)
Capt Skip Montello

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