| June 2, 2008 |
| Last week we saw continued great striper fishing at the Candy House. Steve P and others caught stripers just about every day on all tides. The number of pogies has been dramatically reduced primarily due to “over eating” by the resident stripers! Other light tackle anglers were taking some keeper sized stripers on flies, soft plastics and especially top water stick baits. The water continues to be on the chilly side so we expect the Candy House to fish well into the beginning of June. It also may be a good time to get on the ocean side and see what's happening. I began fishing the Merrimack River last Friday morning and was well rewarded for my efforts with a super 38 inch cow followed by a hard fighting 35 inch striper taken in exactly the same drift track 10 minutes apart. Both fish hit the Trickster pattern fished deep on a 400 grain line in 7 feet of water near Ram Island. Later in the tide I headed down river and fished both Salisbury and Joppa flats. The fishing was overall “good” with a solid number of hook ups. The quality of fish in the river estuary is impressive, with most stripers in the 24 to 27 inch range. From what I’ve heard from reliable sources, the striper fishing is hot up and down the coast, including Boston Harbor and Cape Cod. Its just June and we are seeing real quality action and I expect it to improve as water temps begin to rise and more fish move into our area. The other good news is the abundance of baitfish present (herring, pogies, macks and sand eels) on the ocean side and up in the backwaters. This all bodes well for a great season to come! There is one thing that does concern me though, and that is, the sparse number of smallish stripers; I have not seen many fish below 20 inches and this may be a concern for the those year classes, we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.
 The shad run continues solid with lots of quality fish being taken just below the dam at Lawrence. Several of us got a tour of the fish elevator operation at the dam on Wednesday last week. We got to see the operation first hand and how well some of our license fee money is being spent on insuring the future of shad in the Merrimack water shed. As reported last week, there are some very large stripers holding in the water below the dam feasting on herring and smaller shad. And there are many anglers fishing for them with cut bait and top water surf sized plugs. A few fish in the 40 pound class have been taken in the fast water near the railroad bridge. If you have never been up to the dam area, it is certainly something to consider, if not to fish, but just for a look see.
Steve P. will be getting out to the ocean side this week and I will be spending time at the Merrimack so that we can provide timely fishing reports. Feel free to email us with your fishing reports and photos and we’ll get them up on the site. |
