On board today, I had regular client and friend, Col. Richard “The Machine” Comstock, (Ret.), for fly fishing only striped bass.

At first light, dead-calm wind, overcast, and rising tide. Once again, temps at the dock were in the upper 70’s but the incoming tide brought in water that was 58 degrees! And lots of bait and bass came into the bay with it!

We started off the morning fishing structure spots and found bass at most spots we visited. They took a chartreuse/yellow weighted deceiver. About mid-tide, COLD water began to pour into the bay and bait came in with it – and lots of topwater bait-busting bass! A rare event in our bay at the end of July. The bait was a large minnow 3-4″ inches long. There were also crabs and squid with them. And some very big fish. Most of the bass were fat schoolies in the low to mid twenties. But every now and then, there would be an explosion on the water from big fish! I saw one break water that was so big, I said to myself, “that had to be seal!” But it was indeed a bass… The topwater blitz went on for about two hours. Small schools popping up on bait just like it was a spring or fall blitz. No other boats were with us and we had these fish all to ourselves for a solid two hours.

As the tide topped out, the schools of fish thinned out and we ended our morning the way we started it: fishing bottom structure.

Top flies today were a red/white popper with white saddle[-hackle, my Baymen Universal, and a chartreuse/yellow deceiver. We fish sinking line for about 70% of the work and also used a floater for the popper and an intermediate for the Baymen Universal.

Total catch and release was 29 striped bass for one rod, all on the fly. An awesome morning of fly fishing!

Back at it. Stay posted:

Capt. Dave, BAYMEN
www.baymenlife.com