Merrimack Fishing Report
Merrimack Fishing Report
June 21, 2009
I am tardy getting this report out. A week ago I was in Virginia for a long weekend, attending a reunion of the Eastwind Association. The Eastwind was a USCG icebreaker that I served on for two years out of my four year tenure in the Coast Guard many years ago.
The June fishing in the inshore waters of the Merrimack River estuary has been slow this year. There have been some nice big stripers caught but not in the numbers of past seasons. The weather may be playing a big role in this but I recall that the middle of last season was not good, although it was good fishing in June. Who knows why June is not what it has been in past years? It could be a normal cyclical thing or perhaps it signals a decline in the striper population. I think we will just have to wait to find out. There haven’t been any official fishery decline notices that I know of.
I do not want to give the impression that those of us that love striper fishing should not bother going fishing. Back in May we experienced some very good fishing with stripers averaging in the mid-twenty inch size range. In fact I was concerned at the lack of the smaller 18 inch or so schoolies that usually hit any fly thrown out. But yesterday my clients did catch 6 or 7 schoolies around 16 inches.
I heard that there have been some bluefish caught outside the river mouth so the blues are showing up a lot earlier than last season. That is good news. Anyone who has caught an 8 or 9 pound bluefish on a fly or light spinning outfit knows about the action that they provide.
As I close this report I guess my message to you is to get out and enjoy our fishery keeping in mind to release your catch if it is undersize or you do not plan to have it for dinner.
