Surfland Fishing Report

Well Ed Kendreks 62 pound fish lit up the Reel Time forums this week. Should he have kept or released it? There are a lot of opinions. Check them out here.

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We think there is a real merit to the argument for catch and release to preserve the species, but then again it’s currently legal to keep big bass. Keeping a trophy bass seems like it should be continued, but there is real pressure against it. We also consider the perfectly legal commercial striped bass season to be alright. On the other hand, when they are taking thousands of pounds of 36″ plus fish it makes us kind of cringe. Time will tell if the regulations change. If you have photos of catch and release fish, we’re happy to post them here. Send them to stickman@surflandbt.com and they’ll be right up.

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In our enthusiasm for the big fish, we neglected to post a few nice fish stories last week. Here they are:

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On August 6^th at just about slack tide in the Merrimac River, Richard Cyr was fishing with Richard “MUGGS” Mugavero out of his boat when he hooked into this 20 pound 6 ounce striper while live lining mackerel. Richard is Grandpa to Hunter Cyr who was visiting from Idaho in July. Richard would like to send a big “hello” to Hunter with the message: “look what Grandpa can do!” Seems that our local Muggsy has a lucky boat!

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Dave Depaulis from Chelmsford  caught a 26-10 using worms on august 7^th. Dave is one of our long time “buggy” guys. But he had to foot this one back from the beach since there is no drive on yet.

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Jonathan Stein from Wellesley, was in this morning and bought some mackerel, headed to the beach, and shortly returned with supper.  This one weighed 18-4.  Again, this fish was caught from the oceanfront not far from the shop.

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As you can see both fish were caught using different baits. So one someone comes in and asks “what should I use” it is hard to tell them.  You just never know what they feel like eating or why. So our advice to all you fishermen is “variety”.

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These 3 fish were caught off the refuge using clams at night.  38″, 38 1/2″, and a 40″ inch.  All three fish were caught one after another.  John Matteuzzi and son Brian (age 12) from Manchester NH.  The fish were caught on Friday the 13th.

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The tuna sightings have been pretty constant lately, but not too many hookups. There have been some small tuna, and some giants. The problem has been that the tuna are popping up and going down really fast. There haven’t been many sustained feeds on the surface, making it pretty hard to cast into the fray and hook up. The fish are as close as a mile out of the Merrimack, and the Halibut Point area off Rockport has been good for watching too. Your author was out a week ago and saw only a few fish, but a nice pod of whales that cruised along his boat for 15 minutes before disappearing.

Details to come, but we weighed in a 62 pound, 8 ounce striped bass today. Nighttime with live eels. Wow. Ed certainly puts in his time. Keeping the fish created quite a stir on the Reel Time forums. Check out all the opinions.

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Who says there are no fish along the oceanfront?

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Dave Depaulis from Chelmsford  caught a 26-10 using worms on august 7^th. Dave is one of our long time “buggy” guys. But he had to foot this one back from the beach since there is no drive on yet.

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Jonathan Stein from Wellesley, was in this morning and bought some mackerel, headed to the beach, and shortly returned with supper.  This one weighed 18-4. Again, this fish was caught from the oceanfront not far from the shop.

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As you can see both fish were caught using different baits. So one someone comes in and asks “what should I use” it is hard to tell them.  You just never know what they feel like eating or why. So our advice to all you fishermen is “variety”

We’ve just had a wicked thunderstorm, and as you can see, the road outside the shop is a little damp.

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The Fishing has been variable. No rhyme or reason, but yesterday’s SW blow seems to have disrupted the fish a little. Before that the Bluefishing in the mouth of the river has been pretty good. Decent sized blues were taken with trollers (rapalas, umbrella rigs and such) They also seem to be chopping the drifted mackerel in two with great frequency. But today there was nothing there as far as we can tell.

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We did get these reports earlier in the week. Jack wrote me and said, “I caught two blue fish this morning (8/3) right at sunrise/high tide at the point on the beach front.  I used a small Hopkins metal with a lime green tube.  The fish were about 25 and 28 inches.”

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Kevin told us Tuesday, “Was out from 9-4 yesterday fishing the incoming.  Pulled only 1 live mac from Breaking Rocks; livelined it in the mouth until a hungry blue chopped it in half.  Chunked day old macs all the way down river to joppa and pulled in some snapper blues and 8 30″+.  Such a a great fight! Took only 1 24″ striper in front of Capt’s.” Todd wrote, “Meant to check in the shop after I came off the beach, but I just kept driving. Caught some blues off the center Monday morning, into daylight, probably right on or just after the high tide. Mine were medium, but a guy fishing down the beach from me came back dragging a nice one, 26-28 probably.”

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Last night there were some very small stripers taken on the south end with surface lures. The flats are consistent in the daytime with tube and worm setups, but we haven’t heard much about the other methods, other than the bluefish were eating all the casted eels.

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Last Tuesday night our regular contributor TallJeff had some fun on the flats, and he sent us this nice 40 incher to see. He didn’t say what he got it on, just that it was, “Hey how goes it?  Sorry it took so long getting back to you.. That fish was 41 in and 26 ponds caught at night somewhere around the Merrimack. We actually got quite a few that size”

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On the Tuna front, there have still been multiple sightings between the MR buoy and Speckled Apron. Didn’t see any today in the fog, but there’s always tomorrow.

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Folks have been saying the bluefish aren’t here in great numbers yet. Well that seems to depend on where you are. Russ Currier says the bluefish are all over the Flats. And I can attest to that. I had a half dozen eels cut into pieces last Friday night while slinging on the flats. The bass were everywhere, splashes like buckets of paint falling from the sky. But they were not at all interested in eating anything we threw: eels, sluggos, dannys, crystal minnows, super spooks. We did manage one short 30 inch bass on a trolled eel, and we saw a couple of the kayak guys hook up too. But boy, were the bass finicky. Soon as the tide reached high the Bass just disappeared. Where an hour earlier you would spook a dozen fish with each cast there was now no action at all. Even the commercial guys we talked to were not having nights with any good numbers of fish.

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Beach-wise we haven’t heard anything exceptional. there were big gangs of fishermen on the river near the Captain’s Ladies, but we haven’t got any reports from them. We’re always interested in what the beach guys say, so if you know any, have them write me a note: stickman@surflandbt.com

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There have been multiple reports of tuna in nearby waters. These fish are pretty close inside the Ipswich Bay area. The fish are anywhere from 1.5 miles from shore and out. Hayden, who works at the shop states, “The tuna are everywhere!” No one we talk to has caught one yet this season, but the guys at First Light in Rowley, who really target the fish and run lots of tuna trips, are connecting very regularly. Last we heard the action spot was Tillies northeast of Rockport.

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You author, sad to say, seems to have caught the tuna bug, and spent 9 hours on the water yesterday, and nearly 70 miles of circling around,  hoping to get a peek at some busting fish. Sunday was stacked-in foggy in the Mouth of the Merrimac, but it cleared about 2 miles out. The water was calm, but not glassy, and after about 45 minutes slowly motoring towards the Isle of Shoals there was a brief blast of jumping bluefin. The looked to be medium size. But still, the silhouette of a 5 foot fish two feet out of the water, backlit by the sunrise is just wicked cool.
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So that was about 5:30 in the morning. Didn’t see another fish till 11, and that was about 3 miles off Halibut Point, Rockport. It was rewarding to find them. There were some birds hanging around for no special reason, and then they started popping around a little bit. I saw a few Gannetts diving in the same area, so I motored closer. Sure enough, the birds started to get real agitated, and scampered across the surface, dipping there heads under every three feet or so. Bang! The first of about ten tuna started hurling themselves along the surface. The bait  started to spray out of the water in v-shaped waves as they fled the big tuna going in for lunch. The fish cris-crossed the surface roiling up the water like the spin cycle on a washing machine. In 60 seconds it was all over. I managed 2 weak casts towards the melee, but didn’t get close enough to lure the tuna off the live bait. Someday I’ll get one, and then be really screwed trying to land it by myself.

The youths have captured the board this week.

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Dominic Ferreira of Plum Island and  the newest of the Surfland staff caught  his fish during the night tides using live eels in joppa. Now the staff can’t harass him anymore.

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Hunter Currier who has been down visiting his grandparents this week from Maine caught this nice sized Bluefish out in the boat with grandpa!

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Hunter Cyr, a 13 year old youth from Eagle, Idaho who is visiting his grandfather too, caught this beauty while fishing with a family friend. Hunter snagged a tinker mackerel and then live lined it to hook onto this 21 pounder. Congratulations Hunter! See you next year!

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Robbie Padellaro, friend of our very own Dom, caught his using live eels in joppa. These Basin Boys know there stuff!

Congratulations to all our young fishermen.

David Moulton

Newbury, MA

Boat-Merrimac River

52 lbs, 3oz

Live eels

Son of Kay Moulton, but don’t come looking for kay to give you any secrets. Her husband and boys learned long ago not to tell kay their “fishing secrets”. Let’s just say it was in the river.

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Those pesky little “snapper” blues were in the mouth of the river this morning.  The fisherman that was in the store said his sluggos kept coming in bitten in half.  Time to start carrying some bluefish lures around. You know the ones. The usually have one single hook which makes it easy to get the fish off, they can be shiny, fluorescent, or a piece of your old broom handle (haha) painted some wacky color, and they usually cast a mile!

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We also had a fast run along the beach the other night consisting of stripers. They were moving along the beach at a good speed so my report from some of the fishermen said. They did manage to hook onto a few before they couldn’t keep up with them. Here are some highlight fish from the weekend:

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7/18/10, Ed Kelly, Rindge NH, Surf, 33 lbs, 45 inches, Bait: worms

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7/18/10

Alyse Ferreiria

Plum Island

Boat

12 lbs, 7oz.

Tube-n-worm

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Hunter Currier

Solon, Maine

Boat, Joppa

9 lbs, 2oz

Tube-n-worm

Recognize the name, yes Hunter is grandson of the infamous, Russ Currier

This morning your author and some comrades hit the water of the mouth at 4:45am to catch false dawn. Our boat spent 90 minutes hitting all the regular spots; North side of the North jetty, 3 to 5 can drift, up and down the beach to the reservation, the toilet bowl, etc. Nothing but one schoolie to show on our boat, and one by our friend Tom S. There were many boats turning North to find some mackerel at breaking rocks, which must have been a parking lot.

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Bored by the slack action Tom S. bailed and headed East a few miles out. When we raised him on the radio a while later and asked what he was doing he replied quietly, “Watching the mammals.” That sounded fun, so our boat headed out there too to see the show. On our way we saw a small whale or two, and some splashing we first assumed was from dolphin. As rookies out on the ocean proper, we were informed by Tom that we were actually watching a tuna feed. Wow! Never seen one before.

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Over the next hour or so we witnessed a number of topwater blitzes of tuna ranging from a few splashes to a full on dozen fish frenzy. These usually lasted no more than 15 seconds or so, and then they were gone leaving only some dark disturbed water on top of the holes they left in the sea.

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Tom had much better eyes than us for spotting the action, so when he moved, we moved. On one speedy blast to the South the tuna blasted up right next to the boat. In a flash we stopped the motor, and Dave R. casted a Ocean Lures mackerel popper about 25 yards towards the blitz. Lo and behold, there was a follow, and about 10 yards from the boat, rising up to the surface like a submarine, was Charlie. The fish latched onto the popper and off he went!

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Now all types of things can go through your mind when you hook into a big one. You could think about the tide, about obstacles, about your position on the boat, or, if you’re a rookie like the guys on our boat, you could decide that the drag was set wrong and decide, in the 20 seconds you’ve been on the fish, to crank it down. That is panic working it’s magic. So first Dave realized he was on the fish, then his knees began to shake, then his butt began to sink to the floor, and then he tightened the drag. Ping! The sound of parting line.

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So ended our first attempt of landing a tuna on topwater lures. The process was most likely moot, as the gear we had with us was set for Bass, not Bluefin. It’s fairly certain the fish would have spooled Dave anyway, but it sure would have been fun to hear that drag spinning out for a minute more.

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We did get one more kind of close shot just off our bow a little later on, but all our casts were too late to bring the tuna back up. As a bonus, we did spot and trail a big Mola Mola for a while. Here’s a pic we took along with one that shows what a Mola looks like from the side.

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In other news of the area, there have still been some stripers running the beach at night, and some at the Hampton Harbor runout. We saw lots of guys jigging mackerel off Salisbury, and some guys with the macks on balloon rigs. Didn’t see anyone with a striper or blue though. We’ll keep our ears open for you.

The weekend finally brought some relief for the beach fishermen. The stripers were cruising the shallows out front and were pretty active. It was better at night, but the daylight hours worked too. Some of the guys and gals with a spread of rods along parking lot 1 in the reserve were reporting that one rod would go off, bring it in, and another would start to go too. There were plenty of small fish, but big ones too. We weighed in a 33 pounder and a few 20′s from the beach.

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Joppa Flats was on Friday, off Saturday, and on again Sunday. Friday saw one local grabbing 30 fish, almost all shorts, on the tube and worm. Six to 7 fish for another, and a few keepers along the way. Saturday, however, the fish just would not bite. I had calls from two very frustrated anglers. Then Sunday morning the fish got active again, and even the rookies came home with some fillets for the grill.

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Here are some pics of kids getting the Striper fever. Picture number one is of Charlie with his first striper on his dad’s new boat, and also the first striper of the season for him. Second picture is of twins Ben and Max with their first stripers ever. Two 30 inch keepers. They also grabbed a few smaller fish all the way down to 18″.

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All around the island yesterday and today were large schools of stubborn fish. Stubborn, and tormenting. On Joppa Flats for the past few days there have been hordes of fish schooling, sunning, and spooking. They are pretty much refusing all forms of lures, bait, and flies thrown at them. Of the dozen or so boats on the flats this morning I only saw a few fish boated, even though there were hundreds of fish in each school, and they were sometimes cruising the topwater. Nothing kept their attention for long. They’d pup up feasting on little bait and then disappear just as fast.

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Thee were big clouds of sand eel fry in the river. Maybe the bass are all full from gorging the eels and don’t feel the need to chase artificials. At any rate, they are really frustrating the regular flotilla.

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The only bright spot for Joppa guys seems to be the steady results from the Tube and Worm. Red tubes with whole worms seem to work the best. Even with the picky fish this method seems to be working.