Massachusetts New Hampshire Maine Fishing Forecast 9-8-2011

If life’s responsibilities kept you from putting forward a good effort at chasing cow bass, you can relax because this is the time when it all matters. The biggest bass of the bunch from the South Shore to the North Shore are being landed now, including that most coveted beast of all: the 50-pound striper. Black sea bass continue to thrill the few that can pull themselves away from the striper sweepstakes, and while it may be quite a leap to segue from 50-pound stripers to 9-inch long fish, here goes nothing – the smelt are in also.

Last week I vented a bit when I mentioned losing a nice striper that managed to break the belly hook of a big plug. Within days of this occurrence, my friend Captain Russ Burgess of fishinboston.com charters, while plying the same waters, stuck not one but two 50-pound stripers! While trolling in the vicinity of Bob’s Bass Triangle at 3:00 a.m. on Monday, he decided to anchor up in an interesting rip line. With a white-and-blue plug in the wash, things began to erupt. Tail slaps were followed by boils that were visible even in the dark. Soon came the “pops” as big bass engulfed stunned prey.

The two plugs did not get a whiff until Russ noticed a bobbing baitfish that was boatside – it was a mackerel! Off went the white Danny and on went a mackerel colored 10-inch  BigWaterLures troller, and Russ proceeded to land not one but two linesiders that would make most anglers’ lifetimes. The following day the scale would tell the tale, both fish were fifty-pounders!

South Shore

Gone are the days of lethargy as Pete from Belsan’s Bait and Tackle from Scituate can hardly keep up with the weigh-in requests. Mackerel are attracting mobies up to 49 inches long from the Fourth Cliff all the way to Egypt Beach. The “cliffs” have been especially productive. Most of the fish are falling for mackerel, but I’m sure that if you trolled big wood or set up anchor in a rip line and free-spooled plugs into the wash, you would catch the biggest bass of the bunch. Those plugs lose their effectiveness come first light because bass get too good of a look at them. Some are finding fluke at the mouth of the North River.

While Scituate may be devoid of bluefish, Bob Pronk of Green Harbor Bait and Tackle told me that there is no shortage of the choppers from just outside of the harbor to High Pine Ledge off Duxbury. Bluefish remain strong outside of Plymouth as well. While you can catch bluefish come dusk, they do not feed as consistently as striped bass; if you ply many of those same waters at night, you may tip your odds toward stripers. One place I would love to free-spool at anchor or troll a big Danny-style plug come dark is Saquish Rip. I used to have magical moments there with my friend Captain Charlie Lemieux.

By the way, smelt are in by the Scituate Harbormaster’s float!

Boston Harbor

Captain Jason Colby of Little Sister Charters continues to defy the odds by wrenching keeper black sea bass out from select rockpiles in the Quincy/Hull area. If you’ve never seen an 18-inch black sea bass, they are an impressive specimen with subtle striations of black on the fins and turquoise iridescence that really shows up with a high-quality camera. Squidding by day and drifting eels at night throughout much of the same live bottom hotspots has become steady for striped bass. Now might be a good time to wet a line from the Nut Island Pier.

An influx of pogies into Boston Harbor has gone largely undetected by fishermen, but the blues and bass have taken notice. Wednesday for much of the day there were big blitzes and not a soul on them! With minus full-moon tides coming up this weekend, now would be a great time to spend some serious time wading Deer Island. All indicators point to a break-out weekend. With an outgoing tide and low water occurring at night, you should work the stretch between the beach and the jetties out to the rockpile on the southeast section of the island. Eels, soft-plastic stickbaits, Danny plugs and spooks should all work. Don’t forget your headlamp and your Korkers. A drier option may be Castle Island.

Not to be outdone by South Shore smelt reports, the “Shrimp King” Rick Newcomb of Fore River B&T said that the silver streakers are off the Summer Street Bridge and throughout the Weymouth Back River. Rick now has plans to begin netting grass shrimp for smelt sleuths. Not surprisingly, striper numbers are up where you find the smelt, including all the way up the Fore River to Watson Park.

North Shore

As is the case every year during September, the rocks of the North Shore have come alive. I firmly believe that from now until the first week in October, every time you cast a line among those crags, you should expect to catch a striper and possibly a big fish at that. My friend Dave Flaherty of Nahant has been chewing through his pricey plug collection at an ungodly rate, but after being a rod’s length away of touching his first monster striper, I know he gladly pays the price. Over the weekend, in the face of a good sized roller, Dave let loose a 9-inch blue Sebile Magic Swimmer and as the lure dipped behind the comber a huge cow slammed it. It takes some doing threading a big bass through the barnacle-covered boulders that define the North Shore and Dave managed to manipulate it so that a wave deposited the moby onto a flat ledge just below him. As he prepared to pounce, the next swell swept the big bass away. Dave’s been on a roll this year and has taped mid-40-inch fish, and he’s estimating this cow to have been about 50 inches!

If you’d rather play it safer among the suds of the North Shore, consider chunking. A conventional “meat stick,” similar to what the cod crazies use on headboats, is the perfect weapon for chunking. The best bait for this is the beloved pogy, and Bob’s Bait Shack in Winthrop makes a concerted effort to keep fresh fish in stock. Talking with them they received “crunchies” in on Wednesday. Don’t skimp on the bait, a pogy should be chunked into no more than three pieces. Experiment; try a float with the pogy about 7 or 8 feet down.  If this doesn’t work, slip on a rubber-core sinker with as little weight as possible to take the bait down. Inline sinkers hang up far less than looped sinkers.

Check out Red Rock off Lynn Beach or Preston Beach off Swampscott. One of the finer surfcasters I ever knew caught a number of upper 40-pound fish on pogy chunks from both these locations. The “backside” of Gloucester off Atlantic Ave has plenty of surf and should have no shortage of stripers. The 127A stretch in Rockport from Long Beach to Cape Hedge Beach to Pebble Beach out to Halibut Point is worth a go. Peter from Fin and Feather in Essex expects these places to bust out about now.

Mike from Surfland told me that the mackerel are keeping big fish present. There have been numbers of 30-pound fish weighed into the shop recently. Boaters are doing best trolling or live-lining the macks from the Merrimack through the Parker River Wildlife Reservation. The hottest shore spot is the reservation, which is fishing best at night with clams, seaworms and chunk bait.

New Hampshire and Southern Maine

Josh from Suds ‘N Soda said that the stripers are alright thanks to the mackerel mob that remains present. Great Bay is good for schoolies that occasionally bust on small bait, especially at dawn. Bigger fish and bluefish can be found in the Piscataqua River by the General Sullivan Bridge to the Coast Guard Station. Three-waying eels or mackerel or squidding Crippled Herring jigs will catch fish here. Plaice Cove off Hampton Beach has been solid for the surf casting squad; eels at night are doing the trick as is chunking mackerel by day. Boaters should be peppering this place and wherever they find rockpiles along Rye and Hampton Beaches. Jig up those macks first and cast them into the wash.

With coffee-stained water and choppy seas a thing of the past, local beachcasters are gearing up for what promises to be the best month of the fishing calendar. Despite lots of floating debris on the beachfront, surfcasters continue to produce stripers in the 30- to 35-inch slot. Sinking lures like a Gag’s Eel have been steady producers, as have Yo-Zuri type swimming lures.  Nighttime adventures are no longer a necessity for surfcasters, daytime tides are producing as well. Bluefish continue to surprise anglers, but these voracious fish have not shown any steady presence “yet.” September promises to be a good bluefish month with water temperatures in the mid-60s. Whether targeting blues or stripers, tiny spike mackerel should be a reliable bait in the coming weeks. Bass and blues will be gorging in anticipation of their long southern migration.

Haddock fishing has been a pleasant surprise for many offshore anglers.  Aaron Stamm of Stamm Charters reported one trip last week where his charters caught over 100 haddock!  Cod fishing is holding up at Jeffreys Ledge and some larger pollock are being reported on more isolated humps like Boomerang and Trinidad.  Groundfishing tends to only get better as water temperatures continue to cool.

Best Bets

Call it high noon, crunch time, going for the gusto, whatever – get out there and enjoy the best fishing of the year! Mackerel remain the key reason the fishing is so good. By day, live-line or chunk mackerel off The Gurnet or High Pine Ledge. Troll a big Danny here at night and you may catch a better cow. Scituate is sizzling hot, especially by the Cliff areas. And the same methodology applies, but for the mobies, I’d do a little twilight trolling. Boston finally has some pogies, and with them blues and bass big enough to make your year if not you’re fishing career. On the North Shore, the surf is big and so are the bass from Nahant up to Rockport. Chunk up a pogy and toss it into the white water off Prescott Beach or Pebble Beach. New Hampshire is hot off Hampton Beach and dropping water temperatures up in Maine have the fish feeding ferociously, from the beaches for bass to Jeffreys Ledge for cod and haddock.