BOSTON HARBOR & SOUTH SHORE- Stripers 8/14/05

[Captain Mike Bartlett]

BOSTON HARBOR & SOUTH SHORE-Stripers & Bluefin 8/14/05

Inshore this week, schools of juvenile herring have continued to pour out of the rivers and estuaries in both the inner and outer harbors of Boston and can be found in the coves and inlet on the South Shore. Where you find these bait fish, the stripers are concentrated.
Offshore the attraction is the sand eel or sand lance. These bait fish are attracting striped bass off the Race and school tuna between 60 and 100 pounds in Cape Cod Bay, off Stellwagen and off Gloucester.

Early this week, Dan Pearce, formerly from Marshfield now retired in Virginia, and John Putnam of Pembroke had a great morning fishing the bottom of the ebb through the flood in Boston’s outer harbor. Here again, the attraction for the larger stripers was the extensive shoals of juvenile herring. Soft-plastics on spinning gear and white sliders and gurglers fished on Orvis floating Wonderline brought the best action. Small, sparsely-dress chartreuse clousers matched the bait well fished on 300-400 grain DepthCharge line. 6 keepers between 30 and 35 inches can over the rails and were promptly released unharmed. Only a few school sized bass were in the mix. Late in the morning, Dan raised and hooked what we thought to be just another keeper. However, after dumping ¾ of the reel on the first run, we gave chase with the boat and netted what proved to be our largest bass of the season. This bass bottomed-out the Boga Grip at 30 pounds and was taped at 42 inches!

By the weekend, the bait fish numbers were increased in both the inner and outer-harbor regions. On Sunday, Mark Roberts from Waltham, MA and his friends Bob and Joe had a banner morning with stripers coursing through the schools of juvenile herring dropping out with the ebb tide. Most of the bass were school-size fish between 24 and 27 inches.
What the bass lacked in size, they made up in numbers. Multiple hook-ups were the rule, most bass rose well to surface presentations using soft plastics on light-spinning gear and gurglers on the long road. Sparsely-dressed chartreuse clousers, fished on DepthCharge line tricked a bass on almost every cast. 40+ bass were hooked and released in the three hour feeding foray—one of the best mornings of the season with bass showing on the surface.

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