| June 30, 2008 |
| Another week of excellent striper fishing at the Merrimack. And another week of contrasts; big fish, small fish, aggressive fish and lock jaw fish! Early last week the Merrimack area was invaded by a huge school of 20 to 28 inch stripers that pretty much took over the rivers mouth and the flats. Mixed in with the smaller fish were a solid number of larger fish, but getting to them with a fly required perseverance. Even the live mack anglers had to contend with smaller stripers eating up their baits. But all in all, a lot of anglers out there catching lots of stripers. The rivers mouth produced consistently good fishing all week regardless of tide time. The birds and stripers enjoyed feasting on the endless schools of small baitfish present at the rivers mouth and down along the south sandbar. Paul D fishing with Capt Al hooked and landed a super 44 inch, 32 pound striper on the fly. The fish took awhile to land, taking Paul well into his backing several times before succumbing. The fish was released after a photo. Capt Dave and friends enjoyed one of their all time best days on the flats hooking up more than a 100 stripers on light tackle last Tuesday. According to Dave, the stripers were eager to eat soft plastics and top water stick baits. On Wednesday, far fewer fish were up on the flat and we worked hard to hook-up 20 or so stripers. Thursday fished very well with some of the bigger stripers getting over their “lock jaw”. On Friday the stripers were tough to take on Joppa, but over on the Salisbury flat, a school of smaller stripers were eagerly eating bubble gum colored sluggos. At the rivers mouth, the live bait anglers were doing well landing a mixed bag of small and keeper sized stripers (and a few blues were also in the mix). Of note on Friday were the 60 + boats I counted drifting and or anchored up at the mouth; it’s a very crowded place! Steve P reported the shore fishing in and around the Cape Ann area usual spots was for the most part slow, with a few fish caught here and there. Most of the fish were in the dominate 20 to 28 inches class with a few above 30 inches. A few sketchy reports from around the Castle Neck area indicated a solid bite was underway last weekend and into the first part of last week.Probably the same huge school that moved up to the Merrimack.
  Happy 4th .  |
