| May 14, 2007 |
Reports over the last week or so from Porter, Jim and Steve P. have confirmed that the stripers have arrived in and around the Cape Ann area . Al M. has reported that the Shad run is inexplicably far from normal. There are few fish present at Rocks Village and he hasn’t seen any shad for a week. He managed 8 fish 9 days ago but since then, none. He has noticed that the normally hard sandy bottom has changed to a thin soft mud sediment indicating a significant change has occurred. Whether this change is the reason for the low numbers of fish holding in this area is unclear. Water temps have reached 60 degrees at the bottom of the tide and that normally signals large numbers of shad. By this time of the season, we should be seeing large numbers of male and female shad running and holding at Rocks Village. We’ll try and get more info on what’s happening and if anyone out there has any, send it along. Al also reported hooking up good numbers of schoolies at Rocks Village over this past w/e, normal for this time of month.
I have just returned from the Bahamas (Abaco Bonefish Adventure) and got out to the Candy House flat on the outgoing tide Monday. The wind was from the W/NW and damn gusty. Casting would no doubt be challenging, but I was pleasantly surprised on my first cast….fish on! I spent the next 3 hours avoiding hooking myself in the back of the head and catching & releasing nearly 2 dozen very nice schoolies, two of which measured out to 25 inches. All of the stripers were covered in sea lice indicating the fish are fresh in from the ocean and not "hold over" fish. I caught all of them using my 8 wt JQuill rod, an AirFlo intermediate line tipped with toad flies in white/yellow and chartreuse/white.
There were other anglers present; one other fly-caster and two spin fishers. The spin guys were using an assortment of top water plugs and jig head soft plastics. Everyone enjoyed the afternoon with multiple hook-ups.   |
