| July 21, 2008 |
| At the beginning of last week Dave B invited me up to the Merrimack for some early morning action. Our plan was to fish the dropping tide at rivers mouth and down the beach. As we started down the channel near the ice breaker we both noted some significant bird activity just off the channel on Joppa. We made our way over to check it out and were rewarded with a bunch of feeding stripers inhaling 3 inch long sandeels. Most of the fish were 22 to 26 inches in size and eager to eat sandeel imitations and soft plastic look a -likes. Needless to say we never made it to the mouth of the river but spent a few hours chasing pods of stripers from one end of the flat to the other. It was a good morning hooking up a few dozen hard fighting schoolies. Other reports from Surfland are indicating that the daytime action is sporadic and a bit slow with the more consistent action happening at night and at dawn. Large stripers are on the flats at night and eager to eat a drifted live eel. Look for the summer pattern to continue up at the Merrimack. Down at Cape Ann the only major change from last weeks report was the water temp. The average water temp dropped from the upper 60’s to the upper 50’s, with little change in striper numbers. The week fished somewhat slow with light tackle options; flies, plugs and soft plastics. However, the live bait boats did somewhat better drifting and trolling small macks. The abundant bait continues to hold good numbers of larger fish while the smaller, 20 to 25 inch fish, are fewer in number compared to previous season averages. As was the case last week, the consistent action happened during the low light hours of the day with stripers moving into heavy structure and deeper water as the sun rose higher in the sky. Late last week I decided to break out the trolling gear and spent a morning slow trolling a few tube and worm rigs tight into structure. The technique paid off very well with a dozen or more cookie cutter stripers and one super nice 35 inch big gut cow. Young Alex and his Dad John enjoyed the fast action with Alex getting the prize of BIG FISH of the day. Nice going Alex!
 Winchester Bait and Tackle in Gloucester weighed in the first 50 + pound striper of the season last Thursday. The 54 inch brute was hooked fishing chunk bait off the Dog Bar at the groaner (at least that is what we heard). But the good news is there are big fish in the area and with the good supply of striper food around, we should continue to here about big fish being taken in and around our area. Check out the link to view a 68 pound striper speared off Block Island, RI. I’m glad our state does not allow this type of “fishing” for stripers. Link Look for the summer pattern to continue over the next few weeks and hope that some bluefish move in to stir the pot and add to the daily bag. Again, fish early and late and hit the structure areas. |
