Greetings from BAYMEN & Capt. Dave!

On board today, I had The “A” Team – Frank Harrington and his three sons, Frank, Brian, and Greg for light tackle striped bass. This crew has been fishing with me for years and they always do well. 

At first light, lots of birds, bait and bass on a topwater feed. Winds were a little brisk WSW and made drifts super fast, but we still got into a ton of fish. It took some time to figure out the pattern and technique to catch these fish. They were ultra selective. We tried various retrieves, sizes of baits, color of baits, and some different techniques. It finally all clicked and this crew went to town on the fish!

As birds began to thin out with the bait and bass, we moved on and ran about a mile or so down bay. We found a lot more fish, most of them holding bottom and that is where we caught them on every drift. We found the fish today were much more willing to take our tackle down deep than they were on the topwater. Several thoughts on this: at deeper depths the bass cannot see color or even see the baits size, but they can detect the bait profile. So, we dropped the tackle down to them and it was hook-up after hook-up with many triple hook-ups and even a few quad hook-ups throughout the morning.

As the tide bottomed out, we moved again. This time, we fished a narrow guzzle that shoots up between the flats. We found some fish in there, but we also spotted a school of bass deeper up on the flats in 2 1/2 fow! We made a big sweep to get around and above them and let the winds take us to the fish. BINGO! We began to hook up!

The last spot of the morning was a spooky school of fish under birds back up in Duxbury bay. Those fish held for a drift or two and we caught a few more. Then they vanished and so did we.

Total catch and release today was a whopping 95 striped bass, all on light tackle. What a blast with this hard-fishing crew and so much fun kicking off the September fishing with them!

That’s the word for today. Back it – STAY POSTED:

Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com 30 Years Guiding The Bay. Fly Fishing & Light Tackle Striped Bass On The Massachusetts Coast. NOW BOOKING 2023 & 2024.