Quick weekend report. I had regular, Lt. Col. Richard “The Machine” Comstock on board for fly fishing only striped bass.

The plan today was to run a recon trip and blitz the bay with a run and gun and hit as many spots as possible to get a feel for what is out there. I have been traveling all week and just returned and needed to get a handle on how things are shaping up for the Fall Run.

One small problem at first light: Dense, pea soup fog! Really thick and it made for very slow going. Run and Gun was out of the question. We also had a light SE/E wind. So, we picked out way through on GPS, watching and listening for the weekend warriors rifling through on GPS as they searched for the next buoy. Quite a few boats about and most everyone was wise and safe, and crept along in the blanketing fog. At 8:00am, it began to break up.

The dropping, low tide was slow fishing. About two hours into rising tide, the fog was mostly gone and there was a nice overcast over the bay. And fish began to show inside with bait. We got on a decent school of small bass on topwater and had a blast throwing poppers to them on floating lines. At one point, we hooked into a solo blue. I tied on a wire tippet and we never saw another blue all morning. But I got intel that decent size blues were elsewhere in the bay at first light when the fog was thick. Being in the right place at the right time, at the right tide, is key to fishing success! When we got back to the dock, I got another report: Great White off Plymouth and they closed all the beaches. We did not see him but GW filter in and out on a regular basis going mostly unnoticed in our bay and up and down the coast. I have seen six in 26 years of guiding and marked another this season on sonar.

Total catch and release today: 13 fish on the fly. We fished along schools of pogies and also fished structure, and also got into one school of bass on topwater. FALL RUN SOON…! Let’s fish!

Capt. Dave, BAYMEN, baymenlife.com