The so-called “hot spots” are resembling a contact sport and I’m not referring to the occasional humpback bumping a boat either. Fortunately, the catching of striped bass and a lack of crowds are not mutually exclusive as increasingly anglers are steering clear of the madness in search of quieter conditions where they can still catch striped bass. It took a while but the heat wave finally had an effect on water temperatures which might explain why scup, tautog and fluke have all been part of the catch.
This past Monday I attended a meeting with the Assistant Director of the DMF Mike Armstrong. Present at the meeting were Captain Rob Savino of C.J. Victoria Charters as well as Captain Jason Colby of Little Sister Charters. The purpose of this meeting, which Jason arranged, was to discuss the free-fall of the winter flounder population but the talk pivoted to other subjects including groundfishing in general and of course our beloved and highly-pressured striped bass stock. While the three of us had slightly different perspectives we all emphasized that the main issue was too much dragging! If you’ve been offshore in recent years you’re all to aware of the incessant dragging which in many instances in one fell swoop obliterates a school of haddock which anglers are fishing over. Included in that are the dirty little words of bycatch and dead discards.
At hand is a dramatic drop-off in haddock numbers this year, additionally, those boats are still killing cod and lost in the shuffle are winter flounder. While environmental groups bring the fight to fishery managers regarding cod, flounder concerns fall by the wayside. Greater Boston has been the last stronghold for the winter flounder stock for the longest time, numbers are alarmingly low and sadly we may have already lost them. As proof, anecdotes from you folks say it all – you’re no longer fishing for them because you can’t catch them.
I am somewhat encouraged by the earnestness of Mr. Armstrong as well as the fact that a committed staffperson has been tasked with tackling the flounder problem. She is well aware of what happened to flounder in more southern environs in that once the species was lost in spite of dedicated efforts they never came back! We can’t let that reality take place here. The virtual extirpation of the winter flounder would be a tragedy.
Of course, most of you aren’t sweating the lack of flounder because you are in the midst of a striper season for the ages. However, a lot of seasoned striped bass anglers are deeply concerned. The present problem they talk about is the widespread lack of decorum and regards for the species and other anglers. Overwhelmingly the complaint is centered around “younger” anglers who charge into a school of pogies/bass with no concern for others who are patiently working the school. Invariably this pushes the fish down/scatters the school and raises the temperature of everyone pursuing the fish. The only screaming out there should be from a cow-pulling-drag, not angry anglers losing their cool. Bad behavior among blitzes is nothing new but this year it’s been taken to the next level.
The other issue I’m hearing of is the killing of what could very well be the last hope for a sustained striped bass stock. We have the mother lode of spawning-size fish in our waters and they are taking a terrible pounding from commercial anglers. Recreational anglers snagging, dropping, and recklessly releasing a fatally wounded striped bass are no better!
What happened in the late 70s/early 80s is more than just folklore – anglers could hardly catch a striped bass! As a kid growing up in that era, it didn’t affect me very much I was having too much of a blast battling it out with hordes of double-digit bluefish! Of course, we also had all the flounder we could handle as well as inshore cod. Odds are that the young kids today will not be as fortunate. We dodged an environmental bullet once we certainly don’t want to roll the dice with recovery of the striped bass stock. Respect these fish my angling brothers and sisters and while you’re at, have regards for your fellow anglers!
Massachusetts South Shore/South Coast Fishing Report
If you were a missionary from Mars you’d probably be well aware of the bass-on-bunker bite taking place off the Plymouth coast! You can’t turn on the tube or power up without seeing footage of whale-verses-boat encounters.
Captain Mark Rowell of Legit Fish Charters has been steering clear of the fleet and tossing mackerel among rockpiles from Green Harbor through Cohasset and finding everything from schoolies to cows. Yes, mackerel aren’t extinct but it takes an early rise to locate them before bluefish scatter the schools. Should you shove off early than you might find them as close as the SA Buoy. Blues are present in solid numbers off Race Point and randomly from Plymouth to points northward. As for tuna, footballs have moved back onto middle-bank with squid bars accounting for most of the action. Should you have the boat and time, yellowfin tuna have moved in close off Vineyard Sound. The “year of the squid” continues with harbor piers alive with squid on the hunt as well as on the menu for stripers and anglers. Scituate Harbor has been especially good. Fluke fishing among the flats in the Kingston/Duxbury area has seen an uptick this year. “Guzzles”, where two inlets/outlets intersect concentrate the fish and improve the bite.
Pete from Belsan Bait and Tackle in Scituate said that he’s been seeing a bump in interest among “kids on bikes” who have been peddling to Mann Hill Beach, Egypt Beach and Peggotty Beach and catching stripers which seem to be pushing small herring. Occasional bluefish blitzes pop up off those spots as well. It’s even looking like a good year for tautog with some being caught near Farnham Rock, Bluefish Cove, Smith Rocks and the Grampuses.
Captain Jason Colby has added a new dimension to the menagerie of species he’s been catching aboard the Legit Fish, namely – doormat fluke! In the Newport stretch he put a patron recently into a 29 1/2”, 9 pounder! In this era with such a dragger bullseye on inshore fluke, a beast such as that is rare indeed. Black sea bass fishing remains great with limits and PBs par for the course. The skipper took his significant other striper fishing recently and found a pile of fish feet away from his slip at FW Tripps Marine with the mix consisting of schoolies, slots and over. If you launch in Westport you probably cruise right on by all kinds of striped bass without even knowing it. This feat may seem like child’s play to the uninitiated but locating fish which others are oblivious to is not that easy. What differentiates Jason from the rest is chum. Aboard the Little Sister the clam chum flies and the fish love it! The downside is that if you have waterproof/stainproof bibs I strongly suggest you wear them while aboard!
Greater Boston Fishing Report
As is the case with the South Shore, the pogy/big bass bite in Boston Harbor is hardly a secret. Most of the activity has been happening in the North Channel and if you’re looking for any semblance of solitude this is not the place for you. There is an antidote for the “less social” fisher. Long term Harbor huntsmen such as Captains Dave Panarello and Carl Vinning of Bite Me II fame make a beehive for the bunker schools, drop a tides worth in a cooler and then speed off for parts unknown to most and catch just fine all by their lonesome. Mostly they are fishing up tight to the “wood” in the harbor. The jungle of pilings/wharves from the reserve channel through the inner harbor are perfect places for stripers to stage and launch an ambush. Those guys simply drift a dead pogy while every once in a while giving it a twitch. During the last week two anglers who employed that method hooked monstrous stripers that they could see but couldn’t land! While this year is playing out as the inverse of the “nighttime is the right-time” credo for big fish, don’t ignore what has worked for generations of Boston’s best big bass anglers, more specifically, working harbor rips at night with big wooden plugs. Deer Island Rip is of legend but there are others such as the northeast side of Long Island, the 6A Can and a bunch more! Pay special attention to the motion of your plug and be aware that any weed on that lure is a bite killer. For all of these locations, anchoring just upstream of a rip, or trolling through it if you familiarize yourself with the bottom, is the right way to fish them. A good plug for rips is Gibb’s Deep Diving Danny.
Speaking of Deep Diving Dannys, Fishing FINatics in Everett has the best supply in town, so much so that Gibb’s paints a proprietary color just for the shop!
When we spoke, Pete Santini offered me some refreshing alternatives to what everyone else is doing, namely tube-and-worming and a sweetwater option. Pete has patrons that are trolling the Santini tube in close off their kayaks and catching monster striped bass! He referenced one of Boston’s best all time big bass specialists when he called the fish “Burgess bass”! Boy did that get my attention! Close in spots by the Amelia Earhart Dam, the casino, by the Shraffts complex, Chelsea and East Boston are all holding big bass under low light conditions. For a switch, some are eschewing the salt entirely and trolling small swimmers for rainbow and brown trout from Concord to the Cape and catching some corker trout. Foremost of those trout has to be the incredible 10 pound brown trout trolled up recently by Tom Nagle! What a fish and what a picture! Personally I’ve been taking a respite from bass bedlam and finding willing fluke in the harbor! In the past they have been caught in the Town River, the flats of Dorchester Bay, Wollaston Beach, Revere Beach and Lynn harbor.
Captain Brian Coombs of Get Tight Sportfishing is putting his state of the art Humminbird side scanning sonar to get ahead of the fleet and find the schools of bait/bass just before the rest of the gang notices. This is enabling patrons to put a pogy in front of the bass while less pressured. It also opens up the options of working an artificial such as a Doc topwater or Al Gag’s skirted Whip-it-Fish! He’s finding that a weighted pogy fished on a circle hook has been the most effective.
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Massachusetts North Shore Fishing Report
As serious as the discussion was between the DMF folks and yours truly last Monday it took a lighthearted turn when Mike Armstrong let on that biologists are catching big bass right next to the DMF laboratory on Cat Cove. On the way out the door, the first thing I looked for was a place to launch my kayak! Tomo, of Tomo’s Tackle, told me that anglers trolling Rapala CD18 orange/gold swimmers are catching the occasional bluefish outside of Misery and Baker Islands. There have also been blues present in Nahant Bay. While not as concentrated as Boston Harbor, the Salem/Beverly stretch has pogies and big bass prowling around the shools. Macks are spotty but early risers can catch outside of Halfway Rock, off Magnolia and by the Groaner off Gloucester. Anglers looking for mackerel in 50’ of water off Cape Ann are coming tight to what will be keeper cod – 21” minimum – during the month of September! The year of the squid continues with catching not a problem at most any pier or marina at night from Swampscott through Rockport!
As typical of the heat of the summer, the Plum Island surf has quieted down somewhat according to according to Martha from Surfland Bait and Tackle while the boaters are still catching. While pogies are all the rage, many boat fishers have turned to mackerel which they are able to eke out among the usual spots at first light with chumming essential. Anglers drifting through the Merrimack with a lively mack on are doing quite well. Incoming tides among the flats has been steady for tube-and-wormers. While not as reliable, anglers trolling gaudy plugs through Ipswich Bay are picking up a few blues. Should you fish Plum Island don’t neglect to take along soft plastic stick baits since there has been a bumper crop of sand eels, and when focusing on that forage, stripers can be so fussy!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to the folks who sponsored the Freedom Fish event in Lynn last Saturday! My buddy Joe Holey tipped me off to this awesome event. A fleet of 36 volunteer boats took out 130 veterans for a day of fishing followed by a cookout and award ceremony at the blossom street extension down at the Lynn harbor boat ramp. The state waived the fishing license for the vets for the outing. The Coast Guard, Lynn harbormaster and Environmental Police all helped out on this great day for the vets. Additionally, Jimmy Walsh’s American Classic also took a bunch of vets out; knowing Jimmy I’m not surprised!
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Massachusetts Fishing Forecast
You don’t need coordinates to find the bunker/bass schools just look for the boat show! Should you be in need of a break from the bedlam check out rocky/ledgy sections of the South Shore with mackerel which can be found by the SA Buoy. Should you be an early riser who doesn’t mind chumming, the mackerel will come easier. The North Channel of Boston Harbor remains one of the hotter areas but increasingly anglers are look towards the inner harbor as well as the shorelines of Charlestown, Everett, East Boston and Chelsea for a fishing-with-less crowds experience. Blues have been found off Nahant, Salem and Ipswich Bay with gaudy trolling plugs improving the odds. A slight bump in mackerel numbers has been pure magic in the Merrimack!
Ron, the Big story up here in Newburyport is the great white shark just south of the Merrimack river spotted and photographed by local angler while checking his lobster traps. Was in 30’ of water and probably hunting the many seals in the area. Go on Surfland Bait website to view. It was confirmed a great white by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and placed on their interactive gws appearances.
Ron, thanks for making us aware of the over fishing flounder issue.It is encouraging to know the DMF has determined it is troublesome enough that they assigned someone specific to work on the flounder problem.Let’s hope it is not too late.
Not to be a hater but all of a sudden you guys are preaching how bad it is to snag and drop poggies. Not that many years ago your magazine had many, many articles on this “effective technique”. You showed a rig from Capt Chuck from Skip A Dorey with a treble hook, clear tubing and an egg sinker which helped with bluefish bite offs. Two years ago your TV show had a charter Capt. snag and dropping in Boston Harbor.
You educated the masses to this “slob fishing” now you want to point fingers at others? Look in the mirror when the fishing goes back to where it was when I started in the 70’s. As a reminder it was horrible. Your like Fishin Finactics in Everett that was selling bridge gaffs years ago. How many bass did they kill to make a buck?
I’ll give you credit for at least trying to re-educate young fisherman but the damage is already done.
Can we get more from Fishstickscharters? Good wrighter
Anyone seen a Mack in the inner harbor? Wtf is going on with the stock this year? Have yet to see a single one