July 14, 2011 – Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine Fishing Report

Usually our mid-summer fishy fortunes run contrary to surging water temperatures, and on the South Shore that is precisely the case as things have been spotty. But if you’ve been hobnobbing anywhere near “the harbor” lately, the blitzes have looked like a page out of the fall run; the major difference being that garb need be no more sophisticated than Ts and shorts. We have had a slew of unusual catches recently, such as a 4-pound, 7-ounce black sea bass and even a squeteague, and with a predicted heat wave on the horizon this could be just the beginning!

Blitzes have a way of short circuiting composure among even the most experienced anglers. In the past week, three friends of mine while in the flurry of a feeding frenzy hooked themselves during the hysteria and required medical care. One is still battling infection. There are few nastier bugs than marine bacteria, and most of us lack the immunity to effortlessly shrug of exposure to such an infestation. Be careful out there; slow it down and take time to secure the fish firmly before you attempt hook removal. Should you impale yourself right up to the barb, I would obtain medical attention as soon as possible. Odds are you’ll need some sort of antibiotic and an immediate dose often matters. No fish is worth the loss of a finger, hand or worse!

There have been some very special striped bass blitzes throughout Boston Harbor within the last 10 days. And the fish are averaging a pretty respectable 30-inches-plus with the occasional tackle tester pushing 40 inches. I believe I’ve noticed a trend that may help you locate the fish. It goes without saying that you should be on the water at the crack of dawn, before the Armada puts everything down. Moreover, baitfish and their predators have a tendency to migrate “upstream.” We used to notice this a lot when live-lining herring among various beaches in the Boston area. It would be so difficult to get those alewives to swim beyond the first wave whenever there was ebb, while on the flood the herring would be aiming for the horizon.

On an incoming tide, start your search on the outer edge of the harbor, and when the tide switches toward incoming, just see if the action doesn’t flip to an inside game. There are no “Joe Namath guarantees” here, but it might give you a place to start. Also don’t neglect those bigger bass performing clean-up duties under the mob of smaller stripers. A few days ago I was out with my friend Captain Tom Ciulla of T Sea Charters; I was reveling in the surface strikes as 15-pound fish smashed my soft-plastic stickbaits – that is until Tom wrenched from 20 feet of water a 25-pounder with his chartreuse Shimano Vortex Butterfly jig.

South Shore
“Spurts” is the way Dave from The Fisherman’s Outfitter described the striper fishing in Plymouth area. Water temperatures have reached 70 degrees in many of the bays here, which is above the comfort zone of mackerel and stripers. This prompted me to think in terms of fluke fortunes among Kingston and Duxbury bays. There are some tight-lipped fluke fanatics that drift bucktails and squid strips or Berkley Gulp sand eels or squid baits among Clark’s Island and The Cordage, and these guys get their game. You may have to pick through some shorts to reach the 17.5-inch minimum size, but if you’re persistent you’ll catch them. With pogies arriving increasingly in Duxbury Bay, it might be a good idea to slowly troll large Danny-style plugs at dark among channel edges. Big bass with their superior nighttime faculties will often prowl for pogies inshore come nightfall. Some anglers are snagging or netting pogies and live-lining them for tuna at Peaked Hill Bar, where there have been some bruiser 500-pound plus bluefin landed.

The surprise in Scituate is that there are still winter flounder in the harbor. Despite percolating water temperatures, divers are reporting no shortage of blackbacks held about around the harbor moorings. And almost no-one is fishing for them now! This is the time to drift some eels along the North and South Rivers or cast and retrieve them along the ledge-strewn bottom of Minot or the Glades.

Greater Boston
Captain Rob Savino of CJ Victoria Charters has caught some unusual critters in his bait gillnet over the years including sandbar (brown) sharks, but the sight of a squirming squeteague among the pogies was highly unusual. This 5- to 6-pound sea trout was taken just off Wollaston Beach and probably was hunting for the same thing as Rob was – those pogies. I saw a picture of the fish and it was quite beautiful. While one fish doesn’t make a fishery, occasionally we are treated to such a rare catch. It might behoove you to sling a bubblegum Shankas, Hogy or Slug-Go along the edges of the next pogy school you see, that “tiderunner” just might have a few buddies.

There seems to be an uptick in black sea bass in the Hull to Boston swath. And they seem to be getting bigger. Thursday morning a charter aboard Captain Jason Colby’s Little Sister caught a 21 ½”, 4-pound, 7-ounce turquoise “humphead” on clam. Find a rockpile in 20 to 30 feet of moving water and chum like crazy with clams and see if you can’t catch something unusual. With such southern migrants, I’m wondering if fluke are around. In past years when water temperatures have been up, fluke have been found off Long Island, Revere Beach and the Lynn Harbor and marsh.

Russ Eastman of Monahan Marine in Weymouth recommends trolling live mackerel off Point Allerton as well by the Brewster Islands of outer Boston Harbor. A ¾-ounce rubbercore sinker about 2 feet ahead of your hook should keep the mackerel in the strike zone.

North Shore
Patrick from First Light Anglers in Rowley feels that the two best means of catching stripers now are eels at night in marshes, rivers and estuaries and a live mackerel among outer structure and islands. For the eel at dark thing, check out the Ipswich, Essex, and Parker rivers as well as the Middle Ground of Plum Island Sound. Emerson Rocks has been good for eel episodes also. Another alternative is to troll a Danny or Pikie plug and bounce it along the bottom of Cranes Beach.

Some “slot” tuna have begun to explode on the surface of Ipswich Bay. There is burgeoning bluefin activity at the 3-mile line, Speckled Apron, Halfway Rock and just off Rockport. Not gangbuster stuff yet, but there are some fish there.

The graveyard gang are also drifting with eels along the Merrimack River and picking up good-sized bass. What looked like an all out blitz on the ocean front the other day proved to be a false alarm as casters couldn’t catch anything and found out it was just mackerel pounding sand eels. Regardless, with both varieties of striper candy readily available the next blitz could be courtesy of stripers. For those longing to spike a surf rod farther into the sands of the Parker River Wildlife Reservation the good news is that authorities are opening parking lots 6 and 7 on Friday night.

New Hampshire and Southern Maine
According to Jamie from Dover Marine, The Isle of Shoals has been a hotbed of activity for everything from 40-pound stripers to 100-pound tuna as scads of sea herring have produced stirring surface activity. Some of the big bass were encountered by tuna guys steaming out in search of sushi, and they could not pass up all the commotion as the fish fell for pelagic wares such as oversized spoons. The 50- to 60-foot depths of Hampton Shoals has been hot, live mackerel or herring as well as chunk are all doing the trick. Would I love to drop a SeaWolfe Rip-Splitter bucktail jig with a sliver of mackerel skin and hop it along the edges of the structure there.

For groundfish, the flounder have slunk off to 25 feet of water outside of Rye Harbor and Pepperell Cove and they are pulling in huge pollock up to 48” long by The Prong, which is on the backside of Jeffreys Ledge.

Farther north, you want to be hitting the beaches under low light conditions if you want the most consistent cow catches, according to Peter from Saco Bay Tackle Company. Higgins Beach has been very hot for those drifting mackerel or eels or trolling big plugs at dark. Surprisingly there are still shad in the Saco River and a slug of bluefish did show up recently. Pete recommends you troll Yo-Zuri or Rapala deep-diving plugs over by the northwest side of Eagle Island for the choppers.

Best Bets
Boston Harbor has been best for stripers as the herring and mackerel are keeping the cows content. Drift a mackerel by Point Allerton, the Brewsters or the North and South Channels and you should find some bass. With the mercury on the rise, we just might see a few more black sea bass scrounging around rockpiles throughout Hull, Quincy and Boston. Pogies are in Duxbury, Wollaston Beach and Salem Harbor, and with them you could find everything from squeteague to sandbar sharks. Drift an eel through Plum Island Sound for a North Shore striper or bounce the sandy bottom of Cranes Beach with a Danny plug. Up north, check out Hampton Shoals for stripers and The Prong for 4-foot long pollock!