Merrimack River Fishing Report #17
Merrimack River Fishing Report #17
August 28, 2008
It has been great weather to go out fishing. The skies have been mostly clear with little wind the seas outside the river mouth have been pretty flat.
August 23: I had a charter Friday with Chris, Elaine and a seven year old, Brook. We fished outside the jetties using flies and lures. Unlike the day before there weren’t periods of busting bluefish so most of the time we trolled using deep running hard lures. There were blues scattered around and my clients brought a few to the boat. Brook was a “trooper” reeling several blues with some help from the adults. When we weren’t trolling Chris used the long rod with a Rio Toothy Critter leader. It has a metal braid section where the fly is attached. He didn’t have any hits. The others tried casting poppers or Rebel lures with equally poor results. Although the fishing was slower than previous mornings they enjoyed periodic hits on the trolled lures and took home a couple blues for dinner.
Although I was not on the water on the weekend I did get updates on the inshore fishing. The weekend was slow. There were no reports of blues busting the surface. Trolling did produce some bluefish. Night fishermen got some nice stripers. The water is still warm and the fishing in the river has been very slow. Kayakers report that they didn’t have any luck on the flats. One fisherman had some action off of the Plum Island beaches with bluefish.
Merrimack River Report #16 August 21, 2008
Merrimack Fishing Report #16
August 21, 2008
I was not out much for a few days but kept in touch with the Merrimack fishing. It has been somewhat slow, but some big stripers and lots of bluefish have been caught. There have been some big stripers taken on the high tides during the night. The party boats have been getting blues just south of the south jetty in waters about 40 feet deep.
I had a good morning today fishing with my grandson. We fished outside the jetties trolling and casting poppers to breaking blues. Between us we got over twenty 4 or 5 pound fish. Some caught while trolling and some casting poppers. Jacob also caught a nice striper with a diving Rebel lure.
This week the weather has been very nice with very calm conditions outside the mouth of the river. The good conditions are forecast to continue next week. As the water temperatures drop I expect the fishing will get progressively better. Now is the time to get out and fish!
Merrimack River Fishing Report #15 August 14, 2008
Merrimack River Fishing Report #15
August 14, 2008
The rainy weather has slowed down my fishing with several postponed charter trips. However when I have been out there has been some good striper action. The fish have been cornering baby bunker, sand eels, or other small bait fish on the sandbars in the river. Outside the mouth there have been days with very active bluefish but I haven’t hit those days when I have been out.
Last Friday I caught a dozen stripers and they were all in the mid-twenty inch size range. I was using light spinning gear with soft baits rigged on a jig head.
This morning there were blitzing stripers behind Plum Island. They were moving fast. I could only get one or two casts before they sounded and showed up yards away. I caught and released a half dozen which were twenty plus inches in length.
There has been little action on Joppa or other locations up the river from Plum Island. The water is muddy from all of the rain.
Party boats have been grouping off the beaches of Plum Island to get bluefish using bait and fishing deep.
There is still an absence of small schoolie stripers (under twenty inches) in the area. I just hope that it is not an indication that we will have some lean fishing seasons in the future.
Merrimack River Fishing Report #14 August 7, 2008
Merrimack River Fishing Report #14
August 7, 2008
This report is presented without much personal experience as background. I have not been out fishing much over the past days. I did get fishing early in the week. So a lot of this is based upon my experience plus input from friends of mine that fish these local waters.
I had a good day last Monday when I fished on my own. A friend had told me that the blues had showed up at the river mouth. When I arrived there I didn’t see signs of blues and it looked slow, based upon the activity of the other fishermen in the ten or so boats in the area. I tried some silver spoon lures along the north jetty. Then as my boat drifted out I had a solid hit but it got off. I thought it must have been a blue. A little later I had another hit and landed a nice twenty inch plus striper. The pattern continued over the last of the outgoing tide for a total of about a dozen similar stripers. I didn’t see a bluefish.
The weather has not been good over this week but I heard that the blues have begun to show up in bigger numbers. The water in the river is still very warm, typically in the mid-seventies so there has been slow activity. Poppers have been effective if the fisherman is persistent on the flats.
Surfland Bait and Tackle, on Plum Island, reports that blues are being taken regularly off of Plum Island’s south beaches by fishermen trolling deep.
To me this season has raised a major question. It is, “where are the small striper schoolies? “. Usually the river is loaded with these small stripers this time of the season. My clients and I have not caught a striper under twenty inches since June. Sounds good if one is short sighted but what about the future? Stripers Forever Organization has similar concerns. They report that the striper fishing in upper Maine areas is very poor. I haven’t read the article on their website but caught their latest broadcast headlines.
