Warm up to landing stripers
FISHING FORECAST
We’re in the sweetest spot of the striper season. Water temperatures from Cape Cod Bay to the North Shore have warmed enough to set the food chain in motion and draw in migrating stripers, but the water is not yet hot enough to drive bass into deep, offshore waters.
Conditions are just right for stripers, and that has them feeding in areas where shore, kayak and small-boat fishermen can connect.
By mid-July, the “summer doldrums” will set in, and fishermen will complain that the bass have become lethargic, tough to fool with artificial lures, and difficult to locate between sunrise and sunset.
Take advantage of good weather and good conditions in June, and make hay while the sun is shining. The stripers are on the hunt, and you should be too.
South Shore
The Cape Cod Canal has had decent fishing for school bass under 30 inches. Daiwa SP Minnows, Savage Sandeel jigs, and rubber shads are working. A few bigger bass have been caught at night by fishermen using live eels.
With the start of commercial striper fishing season, boat traffic around Race Point in Provincetown is certain to pick up on Mondays and Thursdays. The jigging bite has been good, but it’s slowed a bit as bass have moved to the backside of the Cape and the rips off Chatham.
The Plymouth area has plenty of sub-legal stripers willing to hit soft-plastic stickbaits and topwater lures, but bass over 28 inches have been scarce.
Schools of tinker mackerel have reappeared 1-3 miles east of Scituate, reported Pete Belsan of Belsan Bait. Most of the big bass are hanging around the mackerel schools in deep water. At the mouth of the North River and along the beaches, it has been mostly small stripers, but a 36-pounder was taken on a live mackerel slow-trolled along Third Cliff.
Giant bluefin tuna have been spotted on Stellwagen and east of Chatham, but there hasn’t been a consistent bite for trollers.
Boston Harbor
It’s prime time for monster stripers in Boston Harbor. A 51-pound striper, caught by Jamie Steinwachs, took top fish at the annual Boston Harbor Striper Shootout last weekend, and earlier this week Captain Russ Burgess weighed in a 53.5-pounder at Fishing Finatics in Everett. Remarkably, both fish were taken on a 10-inch trolling plug made by Big Water Lures.
However, most fishermen are pursuing big bass with live mackerel, which can be jigged up east of Outer Brewster at Martins Ledge and Three and One-Half Fathom Ledge. Slow-troll them around the ledges and you should connect with keeper-sized bass up to 30 pounds. However, bring them inshore and you could find even larger bass by fishing them under floats around rocky structure from Deer Island north to Nahant.
North Shore
Remarkably, the tautog bite has been terrific in Lynn Harbor and Beverly Harbor. Most are incidental catches by flounder fishermen; however, you could target them with half a green crab fished around rockpiles and other structure.
Mackerel, squid and flounder are all possibilities from the piers of Swampscott, Marblehead, Salem and Beverly.
Look for schools of mackerel by Baker and Misery islands, and check for bass underneath. If the bass aren’t with the mackerel, slow-troll the baits along the Beverly shoreline or pitch them under floats toward rocky structure.
Tina from Three Lantern Marine in Gloucester said that most any pier which you can access in Gloucester Harbor will have willing flounder and pollock by day and hungry squid come dark.
Fishermen have reported big stripers cruising on Joppa Flats, but they’ve been spooky. Live or chunked mackerel fished near the channel edges might be more likely to fool big bass as they move through the river.