On board today, I had regular client and hard core fly rodder, Col. Richard “The Machine” Comstock (Ret.) for fly fishing striped bass. Richard has been fishing with me for many years and has fished many places around the world.

At first light, we had a small craft advisory posted by NOAA for our bay. We looked at the local conditions in person and decided it was not what NOAA had posted on their site. We decided to head out on the bay and come in if the winds picked up. They never did and it was an absolute lovely morning for fly fishing. A tad choppy, but quite lovely.

No birds anywhere on the bay today and no topwater fish. They were all gone after being here for more than a week in massive schools. But there were still a decent number of fish inside on structure and we were ready for them. Sinking lines and small gray/white clousers was the perfect set-up. 

We spent half our morning setting multiple drifts over structure on the incoming tide. The wind and tide worked together and we got in some very nice, long drifts and hooked into lots of fish. This continued through slack tide. As soon as the tide started outgoing, the bite turned off like a switch.

From that point on, we moved all around the bay in Duxbury, Kingston and Plymouth waters, fishing all structure. We boated a fish or two here and there, but the big schools of fish had left our bay.

At the end of the trip, we ended were we started: fishing long drifts on the outgoing  tide. Some new fish had moved into the area, passing through as the tide flowed out. We landed a few more before heading to port in wind and chop.

Total catch and release today: 21 striped bass on the fly, including 1 keeper that taped out to 29.5 inches. All fish were taken on small clouser minnows.

Back at it. Stay Posted:

Capt. Dave, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com