Merrimack River Fishing Report
August 17, 2009


Last Saturday morning I cruised down the Plum River, behind Plum Island to try the Parker River area. The tide was almost high so there was no problem running through the shallow spots. It turned out to be slow fishing in all the areas I fished. I met a good friend who said he had had good striper and small bluefish action the evening before. We both continued to fish the areas as we moved up the river towards the Route 1A Bridge. After the tide changed I connected with a small striper and not much later I nailed a small bluefish. Over the next hour or so both Steve and I caught several small blues before we were forced to run the Plum River back to the Merrimack before the tide got too low.

The morning tides were not good early in the week. One morning we fished outside the jetties and picked up a couple nice stripers. One was close to keeper size.

Over last few days we fished the Parker River again since the morning tides were high and it was convenient to run through the Plum River. There have been lots of small bluefish in the area. We caught them on poppers and sluggos. In the later case the sluggos took a beating but got some terrific hits by the blues. My clients yesterday had a good time. It was good to fish the Parker and avoid the heavy Sunday boat traffic on the Merrimack River.

This morning, as the heat wave continued I fished outside the mouth of the river. There were good sized stripers and bluefish slamming small bait . At times there were blitzes as the bait got trapped and forced to the surface. I caught sever stripers and one 8 pound bluefish on the fly rod. It was a good morning. I forgot how hot it was I was enjoying myself so much.