35 Fish
On board today, Mr. Dick Bowman for fly fishing and light tackle striped bass. Dick is a regular and fishes with me many times a season. He has been fishing with me for many years.
At first light, fish busting right out of the gate. We worked the school of fish and they were very, very finicky. I spotted another school of fish across the bay a mile or more away, and we decided to go check it out. We set up numerous drifts on very fast moving striped bass chasing silver sides and peanut bunker. The bait and the bass only stay up for a minute and then they break up and regroup and come back up a hundred or more yards away for another minute. It takes patience…
We switched to all fly gear and tried the old stand-by, a Chartreuse/White Clouser. Not a bump in the middle of breaking fish! I decided to try a Big Baymen Universal – WHAM! They slammed it. Dick had brought a fly shop full of patterns and we picked out a gray/white foam slider that look VERY close to the silversides the bass were chasing. That was the ticket. It was non-stop action on both fly patterns for the entire trip from that point on. We caught and released 14 fish out of this school of fish before we moved on.
Next up, we ran into Plymouth and Kingston waters. We found some more topwater fish, but they did not stay up on topwater for long. But we set drifts over where we thought they were and got our fly patterns down and caught fish on every drift. Sinking lines did the job.
We eventually made the run to some new water and found fish busting under birds. They were in 2-3 fow, fast moving and skittish. But we kept at it and caught several more bass on the dropping tide. We even ventured up onto the flats for a short time, but we were rolling the dice and did not want to get caught up there on the dropping tide and made a fast exit to deeper waters.
There is humor in fly fishing. Dick told me to make some casts with my 8wt and I did. A big gust of wind came up on my back cast and I dinged him off the back of the head with my fly LOL… A few minutes later, Dick was casting his own 8wt and he caught his fly in the top of his own hat LOL…. Twice! Needless to say, I always make anglers wear a hat and eye protection because you just new know! Even the pros make a bad cast once in a while :o)
Total catch and release today was 35 striped bass. No seals in the bay, no Great Whites, and no blues. Scattered schools of bass not holding for very long. But figuring it all out with a great angler like Dick Bowman is half the fun. The other half is catching fish, taking their picture and letting them go to let them grow.
Back at it. Stay Posted:
Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com Covid-19 protocol observed on all Baymen Charters & guide services.
****FISH WITH ME IN 2021 & 2022. FLY FISHING OR LIGHT TACKLE ON THE MA COAST. 27 YEARS GUIDING THE BAY******* ********** BOOK EARLY, DATES GO FAST*********