Stripers with RipTide Charters 26 June 2012

Henry and I hooked up again with Captain Dave Guerrard of York Maine for another 1/2 day with him and RipTide charters. We met and fished the Merrimack River in NewberryPort, Ma from 0630-1230, 23 June. We began by fishing the obvious tidal rips in the mouth of the river and caught fish immediately. We had equal success throughout the day casting 7 inch off-white slugs and a 5-inch pencil poppers with medium weight inshore spin casting rigs. Henry caught the first striper of the day at 24" on the pencil popper. I followed suit shortly after with a 30" on the Slugo. We were generally able to follow the bait fish by zoning in on the seabirds as they feasted on the churning bait balls. We ventured out the mouth of the Merrimack for an hour and caught several as the water was piling up the bait fish on the north side of the jetty on the north mouth of the river-mouth. Henry ended the day with 2 stripers and a gorgeous 30" bluefish...what a fighter & I had 3 stripers all in the 30 inch range. Captain Dave caught another couple which he let us reel in for fun. Towards the end of the charter I moved to Dave's 9 wt fly rod with full sinking line, I casted (with some challenge) a large kitchen sink silver minnow fly. I had 2-3 nice hits but couldn't hook a striper on it....next year!http://www.mainestriperfishing.com/fishing_reports.html

Quick Bronzeback Hit Before TS Lee

Fritz, Jacob and I hit the Bench Lock on the Rap this morning ahead of Tropical Storm Lee. Fritz and I had scouted it yesterday and the water looked as productive as we could remember it. After an easy but muddy bike ride in we geared up and stared looking for fish. The river was running at 2.24 and crystal clear on the Fredricksburg gauge. Fritz and Jacob used light weight spinning gear w small mepps-type spinners. I rigged up my 4/5 wt rod with a small white grub on a 32/oz jig head. This rig was still too heavy for the moderate flow so I quickly switched to a #6 bead-head bugger with a black and green sparkle skirt. We immediately started picking up sunfish and the occasional small bronzeback. We fished together scouting, casting and catching a fish every three casts. There's so much gorgeous water we never had to leave the 150 yards upstream and down stream of the lock. The most consistent action was found in the seam between the run outs and the slack water in about 2-4 feet of water. We fished for about 2.5 hrs and caught a 10 small bronze backs the largest being about 11 inches. I love this spot for it's easy access, bike accessibility and AWESOME rock-garden structure. This place is a winner.