Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Capt. Joel Koch
August 11, 2002
Portsmouth - Saltwater Fishing Report

Fishing Report Week Ending August 10, 2002

With a little bit of cold weather the inshore striper fishing improved this week. We were still catching good numbers of fish in the Piscataqua River but after a week without a keeper it was great to get 3-4 keepers most times out this week. On Wed. John took his 12 year old daughter Lauren out on the Reel Ecstasy and Lauren even though she didn’t catch the biggest fish of the day was all smiles with the 31” fish she brought to the net. Many others were caught that day but the memories of Lauren catching that big fish is one John and his daughter will remember forever. Log onto my website to see a picture of Lauren with her big fish.

With the warm weather some Bluefish have moved into the river. We had a big fish over 10lbs jumping clear out of the water on the light tackle we were using. Unfortunately after a great battle he bit through the 20lb leader we were using. We did boat a few smaller Blues this week that were hooked just right on circle hooks so the leader stayed out of their mouths.

Live bait has been hard to get after the warm spell. I found in order to get any quantity of live bait a trip off shore was necessary. I even found it necessary to bait the end of the sabiki hooks with little chunks of mackerel or herring to get the Pollock or Mackerel to hit. Bait fishing at 2KR or the inshore humps has only been yielding a handful of baits.

Good fishing, Capt. Joel

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