We (my fishin buddy Josh Solar and I) fished the AM and PM outgoing tides in Lobster Cove off of the Annisquam River on Saturday the 17th. All together, we caught 84 fish, 4 keepers - the biggest fish was 32 inches, which was caught around 10:30 PM, shortly there after we landed a 30 inch fish. We were using herring, chumming, and hand feeding rigged chunks back into the chum slick. Sunday, we took the boat to the Essex and Castle Neck Rivers. We beached the boat on the huge flat across from the back side of Cranes and then waded and cast to tailing and crashing stripers all along the flats. We were using 3 1/2 inch Gag's Grabber Schoolie Poppers. We caught about 12 fish. Though most of the fish were in the low twenties, we saw some really big fish crashing.
Surfland Tackle reported that the stripers had returned to the flats late on Wednesday with several 40 inch plus stripers being taken on live eels during the dark hours.
I headed out on Thursday afternoon and fished the rising tide from three hours up. I started fishing flies up inside Woodbridge Is. The water quality was clearly better than it was on Monday, but still had stain. I managed a few small stripers and after an hour decided to head up river and fish the grass bank shore of Rings Is. The fish were there in large numbers, stacked up tight to the banking in 6 feet of water. I made several drifts with action on just about every cast. The largest fish measured up at just keeper size. I observed several larger fish swirling water on just about every drift.
As the tide turned out, I “left fish” at Rings Is. to find fish on the Joppa Flats drift. After several drifts and just one hook up per drift, I moved back over to Rings Is. and for an hour or so, landed another two dozen 20+ inch fish. The wind out of the northwest had freshened to about 20 mph with higher gusts. This wind direction and velocity made for difficult fly casting and less than desirable drift patterns and I decided to call it a day. I was pleased to have found the river returning to normal conditions and with the stripers back inside.
Over this past weekend, Capt Al Montello, along with his clients, landed upward of 150 stripers (9 keeper sized up to 39 inches) on flies and other light tackle options. Al fished the morning outgoing tides and into the start of the rising tide each day. He fished the inside drifts on both flats as well as outside both jetties and tight to the beach. They found fish at all locations, with the larger fish caught inside on the Joppa Flats drift.
During this coming week Dave and I will be hosting Pat Ford, Contributing Editor, from Fly Fishing in Saltwater magazine. We expect to show Pat the awesome Merrimack River striper fishery. So catch next weeks report!