Massachusetts Fishing Report – June 4, 2015

Water temperatures aren’t supposed to drop come June, but they have and it has had a corresponding effect on striped bass catch rates. There are plenty of fish here; it’s just that the chill has underscored that they are cold-blooded critters. The good news is that last weekend a wave of big bass showed up under a mackerel school at an outer Boston Harbor migration route. Could they be inshore by this weekend?

Massachusetts South Shore

Mackerel are spotty but sea herring make for a fine alternative on the South Shore and they are plentiful, according to Pete from Belsan’s in Scituate. Stripers up to 43” are making their presence felt, primarily in the North River, where there are two divergent groups. Boaters are pounding the bass with live mackerel and sea herring while the stealthy “serpent whisperers” are letting the eels do the work among the estuarial sections of the North River. Bridges and eels go together like a cow and a singing drag. There are no shortage of bridges on this river: pick one with ambient light and fish the shadow line with either an eel or a bucktail jig. You can often see stripers tailing in the current just behind shadow lines looking to pick off prey. A jig brought in at about a 45-degree angle to the front of the fish so that it pops into their field of vision is deadly under these circumstances. Other noteworthy catches are happening at The Glades, Minot’s Ledge and Smith Rocks.

Flounder fishing in Scituate Harbor is hit or miss, but a better bet for some scrumptious table fare might be the blackfish at Bryant Rock. A diver who frequents Belsan’s described the volume of tautog there as “Everywhere I turned”! These fish are numerous and undervalued in these parts.

Scotty of Green Harbor B&T delivers the goods to the tuna-obsessed and for the sake of this report he delivered the news many are wanting to here – the first confirmed catch of a giant! Scotty’s hunch is that the stretch from the eastern edge of the Southwest Corner out to Wildcat Knoll could be your best bet for bagging that first brute. That’s a lot of water to cover, but do your homework and target humps that will ball-up bait and just maybe famished tuna fresh looking to top off the tank after their migration. To cover such a vast area, you’ll obviously have to troll, and you can’t beat a ballyhoo in the wash. To add a splash of color, it is recommended to embellish the bait with a red skirt at the head. Stripers up to 40” have been taken on mackerel chunks from the Green Harbor Jetty out through Burkes Beach. Patrons of the shop are taking their expertly vacuum-sealed and brined mackerel packs out to Duxbury Beach and catching stripers there.

Greater Boston Fishing Report

Last weekend a few intrepid souls made the haul to the BG Buoy in the pre-dawn fog in search of mackerel, and they landed cows up to 39 pounds that were also interested in the mackerel! The operative word there was “landed.” Tattered leaders told the tail of bigger fish that scrubbed free on the outer harbor ledge. Just maybe that was a wave of fish that have taken up residence in local environs right now!

While meaning no disrespect to recent graduates, the “class” everyone in the Harbor is all amped up about is the stripers born in the Chesapeake Bay in 2011, which are mid-20” fish and are swarming throughout the harbor. They’ve gone off recently at Hull Harbor, Thompson Island and Castle Island.

Anticipating that below the youngsters could very well be fish big enough to take an angler to school, anglers Carl Vining and Dave Panarello are diligently working below the mayhem with SPRO jigs. Odds are there are some of those erstwhile cows covering cleanup duties below the bedlam.

One fish that hasn’t been affected by the chill is the winter flounder. Captain Jason Colby and crew aboard the Little Sister have been shouldering the gales and pelting rain and through it all finding limits of flounder up to 4 pounds! What’s most interesting is that he’s finding flounder in new places every week! In addition to Deer Island Flats, Quincy Bay, and Hospital Shoals, Georges Island has been a go! To cop Captain Colby, find “live bottom” such as some combination of ledge, mussel beds or a wreck, anchor uptide of such structure and “draw” the fish toward you with chum. Just make sure you weigh the chum dispenser down to the bottom.

Massachusetts North Shore Fishing Report

Some shop owners are just more accommodating than others, and the poster child for that could be Tomo from Tomo’s Tackle in Salem. He’s even been given to delivering seaworms to hordes of striper-obsessed anglers off Red Rock in Lynn. The obsession doesn’t stop there as 35” stripers appear to have an insatiable appetite for worms off this shore spot!

Mackerel are a tough find and sea herring easier, but should you top off the baitwell, troll the herring by Short Beach, the Tides Restaurant, Preston Beach and Devereux Beach. Chunkers are picking up a few bass off Devereux as well.

If you have a fixation for flounder, soak seaworms off The Fisherman’s Beach, the mouth of Marblehead Harbor and Manchester Harbor. Anglers trying for squid are picking up a few from the usual lit pier spots; pick up a few squid jigs from Tomo and he’ll steer you in the right direction.

I placed a call to Three Lantern Marine to get the scoop on Gloucester and was blown away by the information and knowledge I received. Tina told me that the ticket to catching stripers in Gloucester Harbor was to jig up mackerel, harbor pollock, or both and live-line them by rockpiles or channel edges. Some nicer fish are being taken by trolling mackerel off Brace Cove and Loblolly Cove. There are plenty of flounder up here, and there are even a few places where they can be picked up from the shore, such as off the footbridge of Lobster Cove. Surf fishermen are catching flounder from the shore of Niles Beach and bass as well when the bait is switched out to clams or chunk mackerel. Boaters are doing better near Black Bass Rock. Tina suggests that anglers target the incoming tide and the first hour of the outgoing for flounder. There are more tautog up here than most would think. Drop a crab pot with a fish rack over most any pier or bridge and it shouldn’t take long before you have a tide’s worth of green crabs to use for bait. One hint where you may find tog is where there are preponderance of lobster pots. Few know the bottom as lobster fishermen do, and it is just that same bottom structure where you’ll find lobsters and tautog. Tina suggests searching for them in the deeper sections of the Mill River. The ocean front of Plum Island from the mouth of the Merrimack out to Sandy Point has had plenty of action on soft plastics and swimming plugs.

Fishing Forecast

The 70-degree temperatures predicted should feel like a heat wave. Warmer water temperatures will stir-up stripers from schoolies to cows. Soak mackerel off Duxbury Beach and Burkes Beach for bass. The North River is a good option for boaters using mackerel or sea herring or shore fishermen slinging eels at night. The harbor remains hot for flounder at Deer Island Flats, Quincy Bay and Georges Island. Red Rock in Lynn remains red hot as long as you have a seaworm on the bottom. You have to give Gloucester the green light for chunking from Niles Beach and flounder from Lobster Cove.