BOSTON HARBOR & SOUTH SHORE-Stripers 7/30/06
This week juvenile silversides in the upper-reaches of the inner-harbor bays have been the attraction of stripers and some larger bluefish. Many of the Bass brought to net are new fish moving into the region indicated by the presence of sea-lice. In the deepwater to east of Stellwagen, our offshore trips are still producing good numbers of haddock, cod, pollock and redfish using clam-bait. Our offshore bass trips are also producing well using traditional jigging methods of the “Race”.
Long-time Garden State client, Don Szymanski and family from Basking Ridge had a great get-a-way to the South Shore including a one-day fish for stripers in Boston Harbor on this past Monday. The morning started out slow with only a few school fish interested in the surface presentations at and just after slack-low tide. However, the first few hours of the flood brought in new feeding linesiders.
Walking-the-dog with Texas-rigged soft-plastics raised up a keeper-size bass in the 20 pound class for son-in-law Dan, on his first light-tackle striper experience. The 20 pound leader parted on the first run, most likely nicked by a previously caught bluefish. After re-rigging with a 30 pound fluorocarbon leader, on Dan’s next cast, what proved to be an even larger bass inhaled the stick-bait, and we were off to the races. Following the bass with the boat to keep from getting stripped, allowed Dan to bring to net our largest bass of the season on light tackle and his personal-best striper; bottoming out the Boga-Grip (over 30 pounds) and measuring at 43 inches After a brief Kodak-moment the big fish was revived and released unharmed—photo is on the website.
John Grothas and friends, also Garden State anglers, opted for an offshore combo trip starting with cod fishing east of the Bank and finishing up with jigging a limit of bass off the Race. Cod to 18 pounds, haddock and redfish took the “Jersey clams” using high-low rigs fished on high-tech spectron line. A fifteen mile run to the edge off Race Point yielded keeper bass to 40 inches which took jigs bounced in the sand on wire-line.
Capt. Mike Bartlett
B-Fast Charters
www.bfastcharters.com
