If you’re thinking there could not be anything hotter than the current heat wave, then I have one for you. How about a grander tuna that is hell-bent on the horizon and making a conventional reel scream like a howler monkey? A South Shore spotter plane pilot just reported a slug of super-sized tuna making its way toward the vicinity of Stellwagen Bank, and the experienced angler/aviator was overheard estimating two that looked to be about 1200 pounds!

Massachusetts South Shore Fishing Report

A frequent customer of Green Harbor Bait and Tackle in Marshfield who splits much of his time between chasing tuna and spotting them from above had been complaining to Bob Pronk about the lack of tuna. And then he decided to take to the skies once again, and it ended up being a good move. The pilot spotted a swarm of tuna of giant proportions and composed of fish of equally giant proportions and they were headed in an inshore direction. I asked Mr. Pronk, who knows a thing or two about tuna, for a hot tip in the midst of a hot spell and he recommended live bait – mackerel, whiting, pogies – and an early rise that will put you at your chosen destination by dawn. Look for forage at contour edges as well as humps, bumps and lumps. Sharp-eyed, speedy bluefin can spot and hunt down prey from extraordinary distances, enabling anglers to expect a more random bite than other species. For presenting live bait, you can’t beat a balloon, a bank sinker tethered to the line via a rubber band, and a nice sharp hook; a goodly dose of intestinal fortitude once you hook up sure helps.

For the foreseeable future, we should not expect striped bass fishing to change. Owing to the lack of a significant bluefish presence, mackerel are still fairly easy to acquire. The key is a first light hunt for marked fish as well as surface-dimpling fish, and it doesn’t hurt to have a chum bag/pot at the ready should the macks be scarce. A Sabiki rig with a shiny spoon swapped out for a sinker will catch more mackerel every time. And if you let that spoon flutter closer to the bottom, you may be rewarded with a cod as the few that target rock cod in 50-foot-plus depths are finding them fairly regularly. If limits are your target, then you had better steam significantly farther out into 320 feet of water east of Stellwagen, where limits are a real possibility.

Russ Eastman of Monahan’s Marine in Weymouth was fiddling with a reluctant fluke bite in Duxbury Bay when we spoke. He had solid word that there were a few fish up to 21 inches landed among the cuts and channels in the flats on outgoing tides, but when we spoke on Wednesday he only had a few black sea bass to show for his efforts.

Greater Boston Fishing Report

Boston Harbor is making many believe that there is such a thing as too much bait. Swarms of sea herring have taken up residence and it is resulting in fast-moving blitzes as wolf packs of bass race from school to school of bait, frustrating anglers who are burning up gas under the bright sun. But Dave Panarello and Carl Vinning have been employing a better idea. These guys ignore the fishy fireworks until they obtain mackerel, which they chum up by either the 2 Can off Nahant or the BG Buoy, and then sink them down below and behind the rolling blitzes. Proof is in the catching, and they have been catching plenty of blues and bass from the North Channel to Broad Sound.

While it seems nearly everyone is hoping and “preying” for the arrival of significant numbers of pogies to our area, Laurel of Hull Bait and Tackle has been stocking “crunchies” that she described as so fresh you can almost seem them move. A chunk pogy is a high-percentage bait, especially this time of the year when water temperatures are up and the activity level of bass is down. For a few choice chunk spots, Laurel recommends Ultonia Ledge, Strawberry Ledge, Gunstock Beach and Cohasset Harbor. The latter has also been deadly for the tube-and-worm troupe. Black sea bass are a common catch, but for some odd reason they are small this year and serving little purpose beyond food for stripers. To catch the stripers that are making a meal of them, try trolling a black or brown deep-diving metal-lip plug at night in such areas as West Gut or Hull Gut where the small black sea bass thrive.

Scup continue to be caught in unheard of numbers, especially in Perry Cove and Portuguese Cove off Peddock Island. I have tried, and this does not look to be a good year for fluke. Part of the reason is that there is a total lack of chubs in the area and for fluke—chubs, mummies, killies or whatever you want to call them—are what’s for dinner. I believe this is an area of concern, when a primary link of the food chain such as chubs is gone, it can affect many fisheries. I’m hoping to get an answer from the DMF.

Lisa from Fore River Bait and Tackle in Quincy told me that there has been a slight spike in squid encounters. Some are getting “inked” off Nut Island, but they have to work far harder than last year. Some big bass have been falling for chunk baits under the Fore River Bridge. Cape Cod Spinners tipped with a seaworm are the trick in the Town River and over by Avalon Beach.

Massachusetts North Shore Fishing Report

I know for sure there are good numbers of striped bass at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester because I saw them. While doing the beachgoer/vacationer thing and more concerned with smudging on Coppertone than BioEdge, I eavesdropped on a youngster who held out his arms fairly wide and exclaimed, “I just saw a fish this big!” Like a private investigator, I was hot on the trail. Instinctively I reached for the nearest thing that resembled a fishing rod, much to the chagrin of the nice lady nearby who had pitched an umbrella. But the bass were there amongst the bathers in shallow water and the fish weren’t half bad either, with a few lower 30-inch fish in the mix.

Peter from Fin and Feather in Essex said that you’ll find similar striper scenarios at Cranes Beach, Singing Beach and Coffin Beach. What is keeping the rapt attention of these stripers is the ubiquitous sand eels. Dupe those fish with Ocean Lures Sand Eels, Backshore Plugs slim pencils and Bill Hurleys. For a bigger bite for bigger bass as well as blues, some are making the haul out the edge of state water, loaded up with mackerel and deep trolling this striper candy over deep structure.

Liz was practically ecstatic when we spoke about a re-loading of striped bass in the Surfland Bait and Tackle area. From the mouth of the river out in front of the shop and through the Parker River Wildlife Reservation previously dejected anglers are no longer singing the blues but occasionally catching them as well as some improved action on stripers. As usual the night brigade owns bragging rights to the biggest bass with their weapon of choice being eels.

New Hampshire and Southern Maine Fishing Report

According to Chad from Dover Marine, the steamy weather is custom made for slop-frogging in sweetwater. Those who wield Koppers Live Target Frogs and Field Mice are slinging them over thick vegetation in Willand Pond and other nearby water bodies and finding willing largemouth and few other anglers. The early bite is right, but Chad says that you can still catch during the day you just have to slow down your presentation. Just make sure that you give the bass a few seconds to chew on the collapsible topwater baits before you set the hook.

Striper times are like the tale of two towns. On one hand, you have the folks live-lining mackerel along the banks of the Piscataqua River who are catching but complaining about the lack of fish. And then there are the taciturn others who are saying nary a word but are catching 30-pound plus cows by trolling or drifting live mackerel throughout the deeper sections of the river. Three-waying the bait is the best means of doing this, just be prepared to carry lead up to 12 ounces to deal with the swift current here. Groundfishing is great at The Curl and The Cove on Jeffreys, but not for those who sit still. Some are finding that they have to stick and move up to 20 times to find the fish but once found, keeper cod are not fussy.

Ken from Saco Bay Tackle said that the shark fishing is on fire. Blue dogs and big threshers are swarming from Tantas Ledge out to Jeffreys Ledge. A chum slick of fishy-puree doesn’t last long without getting toothy attention. Some are doing well with a sliced whiting or mackerel. Stripers can’t seem to resist white Slug-Gos being cranked in along the beaches from York to Old Orchard. Pine Point and Biddeford Pool has been good too with the go-to artificial being the yellow/black back Daiwa SP Minnow. A few blues have flashed through off Kennebunk for those trolling deep-diving plugs.

Best Bets for the Weekend

With the big temperatures have come big quarry. If you’ve got the gear and nerve, set your sights on a whole lot of sashimi and float a live mackerel over irregular bottom on Stellwagen Bank. Bass have a veritable buffet in Boston, but you’ll do better chilling with live mackerel behind and below the boaters that give chase to most every flock of birds and blitz. On the North Shore, the beaches of Gloucester feature bass on the prowl for sand eels while bigger bass hunt more in water measured in terms of fathoms at the edge of Ipswich Bay. For a change try slop-frogging among sweetwater in the Granite State or sharking in Southern Maine, where you may chum up a thresher shark off Tantas Ledge.