Merrimack River Report #17 August 30, 2007

Merrimack River Report #17 August 30, 2007


I had a free morning so I ventured down to the mouth of the river just before low tide. As I cruised in the river towards Plum Island I was watching for any signs of surface action. There wasn’t any but, just a couple days ago I saw a few individual stripers chase bait to the surface above the route 1 bridge. When I arrived at the mouth, just below the sandbar I marked fish down deep but didn’t see any signs of action. The few boats at the mouth and just outside trolling or drifting bait weren’t doing much. I saw a couple schoolies get caught.

I tried along the north jetty using my light spinning rod with a jig head rigged Fin-S. Nothing happened. Just before the low tide I saw some birds working off of the south jetty. I ran over there and made a cast with my 8 weight fly rod (still rigged with a 50# shock tippet and olive white clouser I had used for recent bluefish action). I had a good hit and could tell it was a good sized fish as it kept taking line and I was soon using the reel drag to slow the fish. After a few minutes I got the striper near the surface and then boat side. It was a nice 26 inch fish. In the next hour or saw I caught a lot of stripers in the area as I moved into where there was bird activity. It was a fun morning.

Earlier in the week I found stripers outside the north jetty. They were all 20 plus inch fish.

I am still waiting for one of those blitz type trips when the stripers and/or bluefish are chasing baby bunker. Maybe my clients will enjoy such action tomorrow morning.

Merrimack River Report #16 August 23, 2007

Merrimack River Report #16 August 23, 2007


Striped bass and bluefish are still plentiful at the mouth of the river and for those trolling deep they can be found off the Plum Island beach. The later type of fishing is not my stile as I and my clients enjoy a more even battle using fly and light spinning tackle. We have been quite successful over the past week. In fact last Sunday I took out one of my clients, Charles, and a coworker who came here from India about seven years ago. She is an engineer with two masters degrees. She had never fished before and wanted to try catching stripers after hearing about and seeing the results of Charles’ fly fishing excursions. She did not know how cast or use a spinning outfit but after a few quick lessons and some encouragement she got it.

The tide was high and outgoing as we began the trip so I took them to the Salisbury side of the river near Newburyport. I hooked a couple of small schoolies and let her bring them to the boat. Then she started making casts and soon had a striper hit the soft bait lure. All the fish were small schoolies so I suggested we go down to the river mouth to where I had been having good action. We fished inside the jetties and although it was Sunday the boat traffic wasn’t bad in the early morning. Both she and Charles caught many 19 or 20 inch schoolies with an occasional mid-twenty inch fish. They also caught several small bluefish. It was a good morning. Charles told me later that she is now hooked on fishing.

Throughout the week the fishing action seemed best on the lower half of the outgoing morning tides. I ventured down off the Plum Island beach a couple of times but I always found the fish to be down deep. I am waiting for the good late season surface action.

Joppa Flats didn’t produce when I got out to fish there. But I didn’t try it very often.

Today’s Newburyport Daily News has a story about a rare catch at the mouth of the river. A fisherman using a jig head rigged with a 6 inch Sluggo caught a 6 foot long sturgeon. He thought it was some kind of a shark at first. It took him 15 to 20 minutes to get the fish to the boat. Sturgeons are and endangered species so they left it in the water and got the hook out.

I think I hooked one last year when fishing the Salisbury side of the river. I was using my fly rod with an olive/white clouser. I remember that at fist I though I had hooked a submerged log that was drifting by but headed up river against the tide and I definitely felt th pulsating tail action. I couldn’t move the fish and eventually the fly pulled out.

Merrimack River Report #15 August 16, 2007

Merrimack River Report #15 August 16, 2007


I am a couple days late getting this report out but I was busy – fishing. I had some days to myself and enjoyed fine weather as well as pretty fine fishing. There has been some very good schoolie action in the morning, with hungry hard fighting 19 to 24 inch stripers. In addition there have been lots of bluefish around.

Last Monday I had clients and we fished the mouth of the river around the morning low tide. There was fast striper action near the north jetty until well into the incoming tide. When it slowed down we ventured out along the Plum Island beach to try for some blues.
One of them had never tangled with a bluefish on with a fly rod. When we reached an area about half way down the Island I marked some fish on the fishfinder but they were down about twenty feet. That is a difficult depth to get the fly to but, I had 350 grain fast sinking lines on the reels. They sink at about a half a foot a second in dead water and we were drifting slowly so I told them to cast, feed line and count for 10 or 15 seconds before beginning to strip the line in. It wasn’t long before one of them had a hit. I knew by watching the fight that it was a good size bluefish. However I hadn’t had a chance to put on a heavy shock tippet and the leader was only 23 pound test fluorocarbon. Fortunately the fish was hooked on the outside of the mouth and after about 15 minutes the angler got it next to the boat. I grabbed the Boga Grip with one hand and the leader with the other. As usual, the bluefish, which looked to be about an 8 or 9 pounder, continued to thrash and before I could get the tool into its mouth it chopped the leader. It was a little disappointing for the angler (and me) but he enjoyed the experience.

There have been bluefish out on Joppa Flats on some high tides. One of my clients landed a 7 pound blue which followed and grabbed a 7 inch sluggo.

The party boats have been gathering off of the Plum Island beach to get bluefish. One day there were five of them anchored in the area off of the old Polio Camp. I also heard that there has been good bluefish action off the southern end of the island.

Someone reported that last Sunday bluefish or stripers drove baby bunker up onto the beach.

Yesterday I took my grandson out and we both enjoyed graet striper action near the north jetty. He was using one of my jig head rigs with a Fin-S attached. He probably caught and released 25 stripers (me too). We were bit off by blues a couple times.

Merrimack River Report #14, 2007