It’s a rainy, windy, all-around dreary day today here in Winthrop, a poor day for fishing but an ideal one for catching up a bit with my blogging. So here goes.
The past few weeks have been among the best of the year for striper fishing in the Boston/Winthrop/Revere Beach area. In fact, in many ways some might say that it’s been the best in recent memory, at least where large stripers are concerned.
While bopping around Boston Harbor and nearby waters in my friend Mel Harris’ 21′ foot Eastern, I’ve seen enormous schools of very large (12″-14″ almost two-pound) pogies, the water absolutely black with them in places. And under these schools are some amazingly large bass! I’ve seen (but haven’t caught myself) more large bass in the past week than I can recall seeing in many years, with many in the thirty to forty pound range. There have also been many large bluefish in the inner harbor as well, some up to twenty pounds. Continue reading “Stripers on the move!”
As many anglers can attest, the striper fishing has been very slow for the past month in the Boston Harbor area and in many other areas as well. While the numbers are way down, the average size of the stripers caught is much larger than I’ve seen in quite some time, with twenty-to-thirty pounders not uncommon, and a few in the forty-to-fifty pound range. Most of these fish, however are being caught by baitfishermen using live pogies or chunk mackerel; flyfishermen are usually getting skunked.
If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been blogging more frequently, wonder no more. I’ve been simply too busy: filling orders, conducting classes, traveling, writing, photographing, fishing, and–though I didn’t know it at the time–doing research for a new book. At the end of each day, despite my best intentions to write up a newsletter or even a blog, I was simply too tired to do anything more than flop into bed and dream about the day to come.