As I mentioned in last weeks report, the striper and bluefish fishing has improved considerably. On Monday of last week, I had Capt. Dave Beshara out for some Cape Ann “slurping” stripers. We found several large pods of stripers in and around Milk Island. The stripers were feeding (slurping) just under the waters surface. They were apparently feeding on crustacean larvae that is now hatching and floating up to the surface. We set up our fly rods with slow sinking intermediate lines and chose a fly pattern called “Tim’s Toad”. The fly pattern was designed to imitate shrimp and other crustacean and is one of the better fish takers used in the Florida flats for bonefish, tarpon and redfish. I actually started using this pattern early this season at Little River with excellent results. The pattern worked perfectly on the surface feeding stripers; no hesitation in the strikes or willingness to gobble the fly up. The pods of fish we found were of mixed year classes, some fish were 18-24 inches and others were 25-28 inches. Sight fishing to surface feeding stripers is super exciting and very challenging as the stripers are easily spooked off the surface. So you need to move in on the pod slowly and quietly and make a very accurate cast to the lead fish of the pod. Casting directly into the pod spooks the stripers immediately.The “take” is much harder than you might expect and we had a few stripers leap clear out of the water, an uncommon sight for stripers. We caught and released about a dozen very nice stripers before calling it a day. During the course of the week I had the pleasure of fishing with a Harry and his son Reid from Cleveland. Both anglers fished with me last season and very much enjoyed the Cape Ann angling. I told both of them to expect some great striper action and the stripers did not disappoint. I set Reid up with spinning tackle tipped with the “Jumpin minnow” top water hard bait and Harry with the fly rod. We set out from the town float and stopped at Straitsmouth Island. Within ½ dozen casts, both anglers were into stripers. That pattern continued for most of the day. Later that morning we headed south to Milk Is and fished the "slurpers" with very good success. The stripers were eager to take the toad and the jumpin minnow as evidenced in the double header in the photo below. Later in the week I had the pleasure of taking Harry’s wife Geri and daughter Miriam along with Reid for a short( weather shortened) adventure. All the anglers got into the action, catching and releasing about a dozen stripers and few bluefish.  Seems that Porter has found those elusive large stripers as evidenced by those hefty “dawgs” pictured below. Porter and friends landed and released 8 large stripers up to 45 inches and 38 pounds. Porter tells me the fish were taken at a location a mile or so offshore while drifting and chumming/chunking with herring.  |
| Captain Skip Montello |