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STELLWAGEN BANK, MA-Cod & BOSTON HARBOR-Stripers 6/5/05

PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 11:06 am
by bfast
STELLWAGEN BANK, MA- Cod & BOSTON HARBOR-Stripers-June 4, 2005

Finally, the last week in May has ushered in some great weather. We have all but skipped spring this year and segued right into summer with a few days of southwest winds and temperatures in the 80’s. Ground fishing on Stellwagen continues to be excellent east of the bank, especially for haddock. Striped Bass have moved into the bays, harbors and rocky ledges chasing alewife, mackerel and silversides. Flounder fishing for blackbacks has really turned on. Still, water temps are 10 degrees below normal for this time of year.

This week a number of groups from the Garden State ventured north to fill their coolers with haddock, cod, wolfish and cusk. Early in the week, Diane Wylazlowki and her nephews had a great trip on Stellwagen’s eastern edge catching cod and haddock. On the weekend, Bill Zacharowsky’s group from Somerset, NJ fished on the JANET B and Heldar Batista from Kearny, NJ fished on the DECISIVE. Bill’s group had the greatest variety of species including mostly haddock and cod, 6 wolfish and 10 cusk. A 25 pound cod was the pool winner. Fishing skimmer clams was the productive bottom fishing method of choice. On the last drop, while reeling up from the bottom, a 30 pound striped bass slammed the clam rig. The bass was promptly released at boat-side, since we were fishing in the Federal waters.

On the weekend, while Capt. Bob and Scott were guiding the Garden State anglers, I was on the B-FAST in Boston Harbor guiding longtime client Roger Thuot from Petersham, MA for stripers. At first light, the bass were on the surface slurping silversides in Boston’s inner-harbor. Both light-spinning with ½ oz jig-head garnished with 4 inch smokin’ shad rubber baits and 1/0 chartreuse half & half’s on the fly rod produced equally well. Most of the bass were between 20 and 30 inches. The bass continued to move into the upper-reaches of the harbor bays on the flooding tide. When the surface activity slowed, we shifted to casting to structure, and Roger was rewarded with a 36 inch, 18 pound keeper. The mackerel are outside on the rocky ledges. The Cohasset Harbor Marina’s Dockmaster reported that his nephew landed two keeper bass this week on the ledges at 32 and 35 pounds, not inches!


Capt. Mike Bartlett
B-Fast Charters
www.bfastcharters.com