By all indications, both inshore and offshore, the Fall blitz is reaching it’s
peak. The peanut bunkers are swarming in huge schools, the bluefish, stripers and tuna are feasting to the point of
gorging. This past week the fishing was the best it has been over the past 3 or 4 weeks. There are tons of stripers
all along the Cape Ann coastal beaches, coves and open water. Bluefish have been abundant a mile or so off Pebble and
in Gloucester harbor. A good number of football tuna are just offshore near Thatcher and up to north and south. In
two outings, Captain Allan Smith and I hooked more than 1/2 dozen tuna and released all landed fish. The fish were
all “cookie cutters”, 40-44 inches in length. We employed the “running and gunning” strategy; chasing down the pods
of surface feeding fish. We had all our luck using the Ocean Saltwater Lures 5 inch mackerel popper (see photo). You
can find this great plug at a few area tackle shops or go their web site:
Ocean Saltwater Lures for a listing of shops.
I had tried a few other top waters and some jigs without success.
 
The striper fishing this past week was also great. I had the unusual pleasure of shore guiding a super surf angler. Todd was vacationing on Cape Ann and asked me to take him around to some of the best shore venues. We had a great time casting a variety of artificial baits from the rocks and beach areas. We traveled from locations in Rockport to finishing a great day with blitzing stripers at Eastern Point. I had Todd pitching a “jumpin minnow” just out 30 feet from the sand. He hooked, landed and released in excess of 30 super plumped up stripers including a real nice 33 incher. This was his best surf fishing day of his life!
Check out the video clip to figure out where we were!
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