| July 14, 2008 |
| The hot summer action along the Cape Ann shore definitely cooled down some over the second half of last week. Ocean side water temps have risen significantly as well, pushing 70 degrees at weeks end. There continues to be an abundant supply of spike macks and silver side’s ocean side and in the harbors. The hordes baitfish are keeping the resident stripers “appetite free” for most of the day as daily hook ups have dropped off. The live liners continue to have their way with the larger stripers but mainly during the low light hours. The smaller stripers, 25 to 30 inch fish, became more difficult to fool with artificial offerings as the week passed. We found good numbers of stripers holed up in structure from Sandy Bay on down the coast to Good Harbor, but getting them to eat required persistence and many casts. The stripers we hooked up numbered equally with the number of chases/ misses indicating their lack of aggressive feeding desire. Our most success came with flies fished deep and tight to structure and large Slug-go’s fished on top near too structure as well. We had no success with an assortment of plugs or jigs. Steve P reported ultra slow action along area rocks and beaches as well, fishing most every early morning throughout the week. It appears that we are entering the “summer doldrums” much earlier than we would expect. This early summer slow down in action may be due to a number of factors including; higher than normal water temps, abundant baitfish and the lack of bluefish to mix things up. The fishing action to the north at the Merrimack is similar, with the best fishing still happening at night or at the rivers mouth and back sand bars. There is still plenty of bait there as well and anglers fishing near Breaking Rocks are hitting lots of big stripers live lining macks. The surf action at Plum Island is slow as it is on Cape Ann. A few reports to the south at Boston Harbor, Nahant and off Lynn indicate there are solid numbers of stripers feeding on tons of baitfish. I expect the action to fluctuate day to day as we move into mid summer patterns. The baitfish will keep the stripers close by until their numbers drop off or when the bluefish arrive to mix it up a bit. The best bet for hooking up is live lining macks, trolled or on a balloon rig fished near structure. But in either case, fish early morning or late afternoon for the best results.
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