As part of a family wedding trip to the Boston area, my brother and I scheduled a striper trip off the North Shore in mid-July. He needed the diversion after all the wedding stress. He’s a golfer, but he’s always a good sport to go out with me on these striper trips whenever I fly back to visit family. The original guide that we booked developed an issue with the lower unit of his engine the previous day and he managed to switch us to his friend, Captain Tim Brady, of Fulmar Guide Service. We met up with Tim at Beverly Harbor and boarded his amazing 34’ SeaVee. This is a massive 34’ center console boat powered by twin Suzuki 300hp 4-stroke engines. The space in the bow is huge and all the desk hardware can be flattened flush to minimize line-tangling. The boat has huge amount of storage.
This was the first day of a 90o+ heat wave – sun, sun, sun. While the winds were forecast to be in the low teens, they never rose above the middle single digits. Even with water temps in the lower 60’s, it was blazingly hot on the boat while we fished and I was dripping. I worked hard to stay hydrated. High tide was about an hour before we departed at 10:30AM and would be approaching low as we finished in the mid-afternoon
I started out with my Sage 9wt. with the fast-sinking tip of a Rio VersiTip line. Tim suggested a generic baitfish pattern. My brother, who isn’t a flyfisher but often will cast flies on these trips, would be fishing a spinning rod today from the stern.
After slowly motoring out of Beverly Harbor, we headed north toward Misery Island and Little Misery Island. Along the way, we encountered several patches of “nervous” water – schools of menhaden just under the surface and the fish finder indicated that were some larger targets, likely stripers, under the schools. But it is a longshot to induce stripers to strike midday under these conditions, especially with so much bait around. So, we passed the schools by.
Instead, we would circle the exposed shores of small granite islands.
The name of the game would be cast to the shoreline as tight as we could and then retrieve the fly (or lure) back toward the boat. Ideally, you wanted drop the fly into the frothy green water of a breaking wave, give it a few seconds to sink, and then strip it back. The stripers would be waiting just under the breaking waves to intercept any food items knocked off by the incoming wave. Cast, strip, repeat; cast, strip repeat. When we finished covering one island, we were off to the next.
The 9 wt. is a beast to cast repeatedly, especially when Tim switched the original fly to one with a rabbit-strip tail, especially hour after hour. My triceps was on fire after the first hour. Early on, I had a fish follow the fly out from the shore but it then turned away. After an hour, I finally had a firm strike and it was game on. This 18ish” put on a game fight, but it was overmatched by the 9 wt.
During a rehydration break, I decided to break out my Hardy 6 wt. with a fast sink-tip line. Yes, I would be under-gunned if I encountered a 30+” striper, but the chances of encountering a fish of this caliber were slim. The lighter rod did ease some of the wear and tear on my casting shoulder. But it didn’t make the fishing much hotter… I have one strike that didn’t hook up and a few more follows.
It began to feel a bit like steelheading – slowly working along the shoreline casting to every likely spot, rinse and repeat. My casting was certainly NOT flawless (running line tangles were an issue), but I was dropping enough quality casts into the right kind of water to expect better results.
And just like steelheading, the day was rescued by a single fish. My cast carried just a few inches too long and the fly landed on the Ascophyllum algae above a narrow channel. I just let the fly sit. The crest of the incoming wave picked the fly up and dropped it into the froth. I waited a few seconds to let it sink and started to strip. On the fourth strip, a striper hammered the fly and I strip-set the hook. I kept the tension on the line while I reeled in the excess fly line. Safely on the reel, I kept the pressure on the fish and blunted its runs toward the rocks along the shoreline. Tim lipped the fish, removed the hook, and we took a few pictures of this low 20” fish. And then it was back in the water.
That ended up being it for me. Tim and my brother kept switching lures on his spinning rod to find something that they wanted. Outside of a few half-hearted follows, my brother was totally blanked. Fortunately, he is a good sport about this.
Tim already had us out on the water for more than we had expected. On the return to Beverly Harbor, he agreed to cruise past some of the islands that we had fished so that I could take some pictures of eiders and other birds (see “Got any bird pics” post).
And he headed offshore to a spot where he knew we would see gray seals hauled out (see “Got any mammal pictures” post).
In retrospect, first the fishing would have been better if there had been more wave action crashing into the shore. Second, Tim said that if he were taking his kids out for doing this style of fishing, he would have headed out in the early morning of the second half of a rising tide. It didn’t help that the surface water temperatures had spiked previous day or two and we could have used some cloud cover on the day. One of these days, I need to make a deliberate, multi-day striper trip that includes the Cape Ann area and Cape Cod.
Steve
This was the first day of a 90o+ heat wave – sun, sun, sun. While the winds were forecast to be in the low teens, they never rose above the middle single digits. Even with water temps in the lower 60’s, it was blazingly hot on the boat while we fished and I was dripping. I worked hard to stay hydrated. High tide was about an hour before we departed at 10:30AM and would be approaching low as we finished in the mid-afternoon
I started out with my Sage 9wt. with the fast-sinking tip of a Rio VersiTip line. Tim suggested a generic baitfish pattern. My brother, who isn’t a flyfisher but often will cast flies on these trips, would be fishing a spinning rod today from the stern.
After slowly motoring out of Beverly Harbor, we headed north toward Misery Island and Little Misery Island. Along the way, we encountered several patches of “nervous” water – schools of menhaden just under the surface and the fish finder indicated that were some larger targets, likely stripers, under the schools. But it is a longshot to induce stripers to strike midday under these conditions, especially with so much bait around. So, we passed the schools by.
Instead, we would circle the exposed shores of small granite islands.
The name of the game would be cast to the shoreline as tight as we could and then retrieve the fly (or lure) back toward the boat. Ideally, you wanted drop the fly into the frothy green water of a breaking wave, give it a few seconds to sink, and then strip it back. The stripers would be waiting just under the breaking waves to intercept any food items knocked off by the incoming wave. Cast, strip, repeat; cast, strip repeat. When we finished covering one island, we were off to the next.
The 9 wt. is a beast to cast repeatedly, especially when Tim switched the original fly to one with a rabbit-strip tail, especially hour after hour. My triceps was on fire after the first hour. Early on, I had a fish follow the fly out from the shore but it then turned away. After an hour, I finally had a firm strike and it was game on. This 18ish” put on a game fight, but it was overmatched by the 9 wt.
During a rehydration break, I decided to break out my Hardy 6 wt. with a fast sink-tip line. Yes, I would be under-gunned if I encountered a 30+” striper, but the chances of encountering a fish of this caliber were slim. The lighter rod did ease some of the wear and tear on my casting shoulder. But it didn’t make the fishing much hotter… I have one strike that didn’t hook up and a few more follows.
It began to feel a bit like steelheading – slowly working along the shoreline casting to every likely spot, rinse and repeat. My casting was certainly NOT flawless (running line tangles were an issue), but I was dropping enough quality casts into the right kind of water to expect better results.
And just like steelheading, the day was rescued by a single fish. My cast carried just a few inches too long and the fly landed on the Ascophyllum algae above a narrow channel. I just let the fly sit. The crest of the incoming wave picked the fly up and dropped it into the froth. I waited a few seconds to let it sink and started to strip. On the fourth strip, a striper hammered the fly and I strip-set the hook. I kept the tension on the line while I reeled in the excess fly line. Safely on the reel, I kept the pressure on the fish and blunted its runs toward the rocks along the shoreline. Tim lipped the fish, removed the hook, and we took a few pictures of this low 20” fish. And then it was back in the water.
That ended up being it for me. Tim and my brother kept switching lures on his spinning rod to find something that they wanted. Outside of a few half-hearted follows, my brother was totally blanked. Fortunately, he is a good sport about this.
Tim already had us out on the water for more than we had expected. On the return to Beverly Harbor, he agreed to cruise past some of the islands that we had fished so that I could take some pictures of eiders and other birds (see “Got any bird pics” post).
And he headed offshore to a spot where he knew we would see gray seals hauled out (see “Got any mammal pictures” post).
In retrospect, first the fishing would have been better if there had been more wave action crashing into the shore. Second, Tim said that if he were taking his kids out for doing this style of fishing, he would have headed out in the early morning of the second half of a rising tide. It didn’t help that the surface water temperatures had spiked previous day or two and we could have used some cloud cover on the day. One of these days, I need to make a deliberate, multi-day striper trip that includes the Cape Ann area and Cape Cod.
Steve
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