Greetings from Capt. Dave & BAYMEN!

On board today, Lt. Colonel Richard “The Machine” Comstock for Fly or Die striped bass fishing.

At first light – mini blitz right in front of the yacht club docks! A school of big bass came into the harbor, found the bait, and started cutting threw it. They did not stay up long and then we marked them on the bottom and they ignored our fly patterns on a sinking line. Then, boat traffic, rowers, etc. came through so we moved on.

Next up on a half-tide dropping, we found bass, birds and bait up on a flat – that ignored everything we threw at them and were filled with terror at the sound of the boat approaching 70 yards away! It was not looking like a good to start to the morning. After landing only one fish, I decided to take my own advice: drive away and find new fish. So that is what we did.

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Next school of fish were up on another flat and they could care less about the boat. We pulled right into them over and over again, setting multiple drifts. They hammered the topwater popper on the floating line and 9wt and it was an absolute blast! Richard landed a bunch of bass including a fine 30″ inch keeper in two feet of water. It was shallow water fishing at it’s finest and we worked these fish for about two hours before it all died down and then completely stopped and the fish went out with the tide.

Next up, we ran across the bay a couple of miles and found a ton of bass in 6-12″ INCHES of water up on the flats at slack tide! Today we had a + 1.5 tide at dead low, so there was still water on many of the flats. We would follow the fish until we bottomed out on the flats and Richard would cast to fish scooting past the boat. It was tough fishing, but so cool to see! We did this over a couple different flats and saw a lot fish and caught several in skinny water.

Last stop of the morning was yet another flat that was flooding with the tide. These fish coming into the bay were as weary of the boat as that first school of the morning. We were in very shallow waters with a rising tide. Winds really kicked up and it was quite choppy. But we got a handful of fish before looking at the time, calling it a great morning and heading for port.

Total catch and release today was 16 striped bass to 30″ inches, every one of them landed on a topwater popper on the 9wt fly rod with a floating line. We had many, many other fish hit and spit the fly. What tough, fun morning of fly fishing the flats!

STAY POSTED: I have three more weeks of charter season and then I am done for the season. – Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com Fly Fishing & Light Tackle Striped Bass On The Massachusetts Coast. 30 Years Guiding The Bay. Booking 2023 & 2024. Don’t wait. Dates will be gone…