On Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of fishing with Chuck, Cole and Seth. The morning NE wind left the bay with sizable swells, so we headed south to the Pebble Beach area. We spent time casting in and around Milk Island with no luck. As we started toward Good Harbor, we found a large school of actively feeding Blues. Cole and Chuck managed several good hook-ups and enjoyed the action. Soon thereafter, the bite was off, so we headed in to the beach area and resumed fishing for stripers. Chuck made several very well placed fly casts into the white foam and hooked and landed a small striper. Later he hooked and landed a very nice 24” fish on the fly up near Straitsmouth. All in all, a good afternoon fishing together! I look forward to fishing with them next season.
Looking ahead to this week, and if the current pattern holds, we should see all three species in the area. We still have not seen the usual strong showing of fall mackerel. If this happens, I expect the October fishing to improve dramatically.
Capt.Skip Montello
Wednesday, was a fantastic day. Sandy Bay in Rockport had a wide open bluefish and striper bite, basically all day. In the morning we landed a nice thirty seven inch bass on fly in the Gap, and released several more "keepers". When the action slowed there, we moved around into Sandy Bay and had our pick of blues or stripers. Bass on the beach or blues in the bay, in the afternoon, the action was not as intense as the morning, but we caught lots of bluefish and stripers, all on top water.
Thursday, was unfortunately a much different day. At fist light all the Gulls, Cormorants, and myself gathered in front of the rocks where the action had been the previous day. We were soon catching schoolies and a few bluefish on soft plastics, but the showers of bait, and big schools of feeding bass never appeared. Soon the action died off, and I began to search for fish. I got all the way to Magnolia, and found nothing. Eventually, I ended up back where I had started the day, and we picked up a few more fish. A tough day, for sure, especially, having seen acres of feeding fish the day before.
As for the offshore fishing, we headed down to Scituate on Sunday. We got to the party a little late, in fact just as the wind began to blow. We managed to get two fish trolling, and had several shots casting to breaking fish with the spinning rod, but without luck. The choppy conditions made seeing the fish difficult, and had we got there before the wind came up, I think we would have had many more shots.
The fall is my favorite time of the year to fish, but it can be a time of "feast or famine". When a big school of stripers run’s into a big school of bait the action can be incredible. But when you don't have big feeds, it can be very tough. For the most part, the bass have moved out of the rocks. There are still some fish there, but the rocks don't hold fish like they did a few weeks ago. The stripers become more mobile in there hunt for bait and are schooling up in preparation for their migration. Its best to cover a lot of ground in search of feeding fish, but if it is just not happening, you are better off working the areas where you have had at least some action.
