| July 28, 2008 |
| The summer pattern is in place at Cape Ann and as such you have to fish hard and smart to come up with more than a few fish on light tackle. Mackerel are still available in Sandy Bay and the live bait crowd is still getting some real nice stripers with persistence and a bit of luck. With the crazy weather last week I only got for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon and landed 8 or 9 stripers on flies and Slug-Go’s. Most all the fish were caught in tight to rock and surf structure. I’m not seeing big numbers in any one area from Sandy Bay on down the coast to Good Harbor, a few here and there at best. Steve P reports the surf action slow as well with just a few fish per outing. Aside from the mack’s, I’m not seeing any other baitfish present close to shore, although there are small schools of silver sides hiding out in the inner harbors at Gloucester and Rockport. A good bet for larger stripers would be getting into those areas with chunk, or better still, live mack’s. I have heard that horse mack’s have been caught at Stage Fort and the state fish pier last week. So far we are not seeing any significant numbers of bluefish anywhere on the north shore, a few here and there is all. At the end of the week, the weather improved and I was able to get back out fishing with two super anglers up on vacation from Florida, Bob and Jen. They both enjoyed the great weather and fished hard and were rewarded with more than a dozen hook ups and landing several good stripers on soft plastics and a few more on tube and worm. Most of the stripers were hooked up tight to breaking surf under the wash. Unfortunately I have no reliable info on the action anywhere else last week, but I assume that a summer pattern is in place so follow the basic rules for summer stripers and fish early or late, and fish structure with light tackle. And work the deep water and inner harbors with live bait or chum a slick line with cut bait to get the big stripers to eat.
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