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Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Capt. Joel Koch
June 20, 2002
Portsmouth - Saltwater Fishing Report
Live baiting for Striper June 14th.
On Friday June 14, we finally had some really nice weather, with predictions of bad weather ahead. It seems like the fisherman and fish alike agreed that Friday was a good day to go fishing.
The Pollack have moved onto the humps near the mouth of the rivers and near shore areas. Pollack make excellent live bait for stripers and at times are more abundant and easier to catch than mackerel. Using Sabiki rigs and diamond jigs we were quickly able to boat a number of these baits with a few mackerel mixed in. Sabiki rigs in larger hook size with gold hooks seem to work best. Use a little chum to get the potential baits feeding and try different depths to locate the baits. If after a short while you don’t catch any baits move to a new spot nearby.
We drifted the live baits near the mouth of the Piscataqua River with good success, starting real close to shore and drifting out to the channel, catching fish at various depths. Moving up the river near the shipyard, we found that there was a lot of action there with at least a dozen boats drifting and catching fish. The rip in front of the shipyard as well as along side of the icebreaker was producing. Surprisingly amid all the action the stripers were chasing baits on the surface and fly fisherman were into the action as well. The stripers were aggressively chasing the baits we had on and it was quite a thrill to see the baits jump out of the water to avoid being inhaled.
Fishing was great on Friday but the weekend proved to be rainy as predicted.
Yes, circle hooks do work well for live bait fishing. As always it is important when using circle hooks to not set the hook on a fish, slowly real in and just stop the fish. Circle hooks are self-hooking and setting the hook only causes the hook to pull out of the fish’s mouth.
Good Fishing,
Capt. Joel Koch
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