80 Fish
On board today I had Kurt Upham of OhDeer Company, for light tackle striped bass.
At first light, there were a lot of birds “scooping” all over the bay. “Scooping” is my word for gulls and terns picking floatsom (micro baits such as grass shrimp) off the surface of the water. There are no big schools of bass under them, but you do occassionally get a few fish. I don’t fish “Scoopers” unless there is no other option.
We moved on and found more Scoopers along Brown’s bank and around Bug Light, but no breaking fish. We then ran to some new waters and found just what we were looking for: working birds over bass busting bait on the surface! We began to hook up right away and worked many small schools of bass up on the flats. The schools were fast moving, (like albies) and we had to move often ourselves to keep up with them, setting drifts upwind and uptide.
After fishing for several hours, we took a detour and went into Plymouth to look at the newly restored Mayflower and marvel how 102 passengers and 30 crew members could squeeze on the Mayflower and live on board for two and a half months while sailing to America to start a new country. They stepped off the boat in early December 1620, and here we are today, 400 years later, living in the greatest country on earth. Nothing short of a miracle… Living, working and waking in their footsteps everyday where it all began and the sacrifices they made is always on mind.
Back to fishing, we continued to find topwater fish in Plymouth, Kingston, and Duxbury waters. We got into one school of bass that suddenly all vanished. No topwater, nothing on sonar, no birds… Any guesses? Yep – a seal! We moved on to search for new fish and found them on the dropping tide in all of my spots. It was classic “fall” fishing and we hooked up non-stop the entire trip. We ended the morning with a whopping 80 striped bass landed and released on light tackle!
Now, Kurt Upham brought his own lure design with him today that I bet you have never heard of: The Kurt Upham Toothbrush Lure. When Kurt and his friends were kids, they had no money to buy expensive tackle so they made there own – out of toothbrushes. All I can say is they work! Kurt landed many striped bass on his toothbrush today and he gave me one that I plan to fish only one and then I am going to hang it in a place of honor. It’s not every day you can say you “slammed them on tooth brushes!”
Back at it as the Fall Run starts to crank up. Stay Posted:
Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com 27 years guiding on the bay.
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