My brother and I fished early on May 29th at the mouth of the Essex. We didn’t find any blitzing bass or birds, so we decided to anchor up about 200 feet to the right of the green can right next to the sand bar at the mouth. A huge rip sets up there and as the tide dropped the fishing got great, we landed about 35 fish, no big fish though....got a few on a parrot color 1.25 oz Salty Bugger big mouth popper, and some on the Gags popper, and Fin-s-Fish, 4 inch and 5 3/4 inch. I fished on Saturday, 6/3 at the north outlet of the Annisquam river and caught about 30 bass... 2 fish over 25 inches. I used soft plastics, 3.5 inch floating popper, and 1.25 ounce Salty Bugger Danny swimmer. As I mentioned last week, I fished last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday up at the Merrimack River estuary. The river has cleared up quite a bit, but still had significant debris floating down river and an awful stench, but guess what, the fishing was superb! On all the three days, I fished from near the tide top right through to the bottom. Most of the stripers were on the small size, but a few were up to 25” or so. I used fly gear exclusively, changing out sink tips on the dropping tide for intermediate lines on the rising tide. Most all the other anglers I observed were having very good success on a variety of light tackle gear; soft plastics, small bucktail jigs, top water poppers, small swim plugs and chunk bait. With that many fish in the river it was easy for anyone to land several dozen fish through the course of a tide. I found fish from the half tide rocks clear on out to the rivers mouth and on both sides of the channel. The down turn in the weekend weather kept me off the water, but Steve P. fished several of his favorite shoreline location and reported landing a good number of fish up to 25+ inches. He fished locations in Gloucester; Pebble beach, the candy house, the Essex Greenbelt and in Manchester. Several of the area tackle shops have reported similar success stories throughout our area. Today, Capt. Dave B. and I had the opportunity to guide a “guide” from Wyoming, Joe and his college buddy from Cambridge, Russ. We fished the Merrimack River estuary starting at the tide turn this morning through to the bottom of tide. As we were leaving the marina I said to them “you guy’s should expect to land somewhere around 100 fish”, they just gave me the “who are you kidding look”. I set up our first drift on the Joppa Flat just down river from the AYC and on the very first cast, Joe hooked a small striper followed with Russ hooking his first striper of the day. That scenario repeated itself throughout the day! Whether on the fly or on a jig, or on a top water bait, both Russ and Joe caught fish all day. At last estimate, they had landed somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 stripers! Russ landed the largest striper of the day, a nice 32” fish on a white “Jumpin Minnow” top water bait and Joe landed a super 28” fish on the fly. They both landed several other fish over 24 inches. Needless to say, it was a great day out on the Merrimack! Capt. Al M. had a couple from California out with him and they also had a fantastic day on the river. This season continues to display solid numbers of healthy stripers and I fully expect to see it continue into the summer. If you are interested in coming out with one of the NCA guides, now is the time to book your trip. Capt. Allan Smith is returning from Costa Rica this week and I will try to get a few stories from him for our “Special Features page”. |
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| Captain Skip Montello |