July 2008 – Roccus Writing

Striper fishing getting hotter!

It’s been a hot week, for both man and stripers. Despite rather weak tides(plus one foot and up low tides mostly) the fishing has been quite good in the Boston Harbor area, especially the Inner Harbor along the Winthrop/ Deer Island shore and on the flats near the airport.

I’ve been avoiding mid-day fishing and sticking to late afternoon/early evening hours, cooler and more comfortable and certainly more active, with low tides occuring in the latter part of the day/early evening. Luckily the winds have been lower than in the past few weeks and that has certainly helped. There are a lot of baitfish around right now, mostly pogies, some herring and small mackerel, but I haven’t seen much surface action when I’ve gone looking for it. Despite this I’ve been fishing Gurglers on the surface whenever the water’s surface has been calm and have been having some fantastic fishing, both in terms of numbers and size, although these have varied from place to place and tide to tide. For instance, on Wednesday, fishing from a boat near the airport, all of the fish were in the 32″-34″ range, with one fish I estimated at about 40″ although I never landed it. On Friday, fishing the same area the fish averaged about 23″-25″ with only one bigger one in the mix. On Wednesday the action was slower but the fish bigger; on Friday the action faster but the fish smaller. On Thursday I fished from shore along the inside of Deer Island in the evening and picked up six within about an hour and half, again all on Gurglers, nothing larger than 23″ though but lots of fun. Continue reading “Striper fishing getting hotter!”

Striper fishing picks up!

five stripers

After several really slow weeks, the striper fishing seems to be picking up, especially in theInner Harbor. This is what other anglers have been telling me and it seems to be so from my ownexperience today.

This evening (starting around 6 pm) I went out for a few hours to fish some of the Inner Harbor water that I hadn’t fished much recently. The wind was way down and the surface as calm as could be. Ideal for fishing a Gurglerand that is what I tied on and stayed with until it got dark.

The tide was relatively high (but soon to drop) and I fished fairly close to shore, choosing places where the wading was pleasant and where there was some structure or eel grass close in. My first stop was Donovan Beach in Winthrop, where I picked up four stripers, all between 24″ and 26″. Next stop was around the corner in Belle Isle Creek, where I picked up some more. Then, just to sample a few different places, it was on to Bayswater Road (near Strawberry Fields) in East Boston, where I picked up five more, all about the same size–24″-26″. I quit around dark, when the bugs began to “bug” me. All in all it was great fishing for a few hours. And I can’t help but think that it’s going to get better and better now that the weather seems to be settling down.

Fireworks on the Fourth

fireworks Catching up on my blog-writing tonight. Somehow the time just goes by so quickly!

I spent the Fourth of July weekend rather quietly, catching up on my tying for the most part and workingon Striper Strategies (which I hope to have ready fairly soon) until my fingers and eyes got tired. On the Fourthitself–after finishing several tying orders–I thought I’d reward myself with a little fishing–and exploring.

The ocean was rather roiled up after all the rain we’d been having so I headed up Route 1 in the late afternoon to check out two ponds in Saugus (a nearby town) that I had never fished. In fact, I didn’t even know where they were but Mapquest helped me out there and in about half an hour I reached the first pond, Pranker’s Pond, whichI walked into from the road. Pranker’s is a lovely little pond and according to a man I met there quite a good bass pond; what he didn’t tell me was that it was for Saugus residents only (in fact there was a sign on the path that I hadn’t noticed on the way in). Well, so much for Pranker’s Pond. The other pond was Hawkes Pond, justa few miles away. This too turned out to be a really beautiful but much larger pond, very fishy looking. Only trouble was it was part of a reservoir system; No Fishing/No Trespassing signs were everywhere.

It was now closing in on seven o’clock and I still hadn’t wet a line. What to do? I remembered a pond in the town of Lynnfield, only a few miles away, Pillings Pond. I had never fished this before but I had heard good reports and it seemed as good a bet as any in the little time I had left before dark.

I found my way to the pond and parked at a small parking area on Summer Street and launched my belly boat around 7.30 pm. The air temperature was now about 70 degrees, quite a drop from earlier in the day and there was no wind, the surface as calm as could be. The pond had recently been treated with weed-killer and there were lots of dead and dying weed in close to shore but I managed to kick my way through most of it and get out where the water was clearer and where it would be easier to fish a surface fly. Continue reading “Fireworks on the Fourth”