Merrimack River 7/1 - 7/6....the only night I did not fish was the 4th.Best fish of the week( last night) 27lbs... a lot of 26 -27" fish ( new arrivals covered with lice showed up this week... there are more 10lb class fish around the last few nights than there were earlier... the wind finally subsided so I could effectively fish some new water on the rising tide.. water temp at high tide 64....I still haven't stuck a jumbo but there are a few around... I'm betting on them being outside with the pogie schools... next week will tell the tale.

Lots of Pogy schools in EG Bay, Narr Bay and up the River. No fish on the except a few shorts. Water 72 degrees.

Beavertail last night at high tide & not even a nibble .
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Launched the yak at Gooseberry Point and made the paddle to Hens & Chicken's, which had some large swells busting on it. I had to pick my spots obviously, but caught a bunch of tog, a couple nice keeper sea bass, maybe 15 schoolies to maybe 24" (nothing big) and lost a keeper fluke or I'd have a trifecta of good eaters. If the limit on tog was more than three, I'd have stayed longer, but heading to the ramp late morning. I know if I'd been in my old center console, I'd have been out front throwing into that large wash; not in a 14 foot yak. Still that Hobie PA14 is amazingly stable and rides the large rollers and chop well. A handful of boats working the perimeter, but they weren't chancing coming in where I was working. The hard decision now is do I vacuum seal tog and eat sea bass, or the other way around.

Other way around Bob

How about we make that trip in the boat soon?
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you wont have to twist my arm much on that invite. I love finessing tog on small plastic and many might not realize how fing aggressive they are when you put current and white water into the mix. I can catch them without that, but it takes a bit more patience, but they see those conditions as an opportunity to get some easy meals just like stripers do.

When I got tired of casting, I actually caught several more by just drifting in 8-10 ft of water and dropping the jig straight down and just twitching right under the boat as i drifted. The key always with this is never to set the hook, you need to wait until they pull the rod tip down, because sometimes they just don't have it in their mouths all the way.

Finally got out for a father son trip with my pops on sunday morning. Havent fished with him in a long time. Had him on a real nice fish second drift. Not sure he was ready for that and it broke him off in the rocks. Next drift he bagged a niceteen size fish. His first one in more than 5 years! He was pretty pumped. He went home with some nice fillets. Solid bite going on. Wish i could just get out more.

Me too Jay. I have only fished once in 3 weeks (on the 7th). Just to much family stuff/work on the property to fish. I'm lucky to get out and golf once a week.

On vacation last week. Launched at 4:00 am with my oldest daughter, jigged up some Macs and ran to the Race thinking we were going to kill it but there was nothing bigger than 30". My daughter, who hasn't caught anything under 40" all spring and is now spoiled was pissed. Fishing slowed up at the end of the tide so we ran back to pick up the wife, youngest daughter and wife's brother who was in from CO. He had never been in the ocean before so we decided to take him for a rip down the coast. Halfway to the canal, we came across this school of pogies getting hammered by 30-40lb bass. I'd snag a pogy and as soon as i made it stand out in the school, it was inhaled - less than a minute. Each fish to the boat had several fish trailing it. One even stole the pogy off the hooked fishes head right at the boat. We had this for 2 hours straight before we had to go in. With the amazing spring in upper Buzzards Bay and the amount of pogies and macs in CCB, it's shaping up to be a great year. Hopefully the temps stay down and the bait hangs around.

Here are my 7 and 9 year olds new PBs. Chit, my oldest now has me beat...

How sweet is that! :-)

Thanks, great post
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Great stuff right there. I will be down there with my boat next week hopefully they stick around. love the big smiles in the pictures you are making memories that will last forever. Fishing with my father growing up was all about the Deerfield river and small brooks all across western mass. He never fished salt water until I bought my boat. Now he has my personal best beat by 5 pounds. But the real take away is how important time together with family is.
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NJ Surf indundated with shovelnose rays
 

Brother Don still in the NJ surf. He informs me that now, and progressively over the past few summer seasons, the rays are so numerous that it is virtually impossible to bottom fish without getting tangled up with one of these.

? Possible with the depletion of the inshore shark populations, that these rays have no just become out of control.

hey guys - haven't been on in a while, but I like this thread!

Been having a pretty damn good season compared to the last say 3-4 years. Consistently catching a lot of fish every trip, but not a lot of size. Had a great trip on the June full moon with a 30 pound-class fish and multiple teen-20lb size, then its been mainly 26-28 inch fish, but a lot of them and full of sea lice the last couple of weeks. Got into some macks this weekend and got one fish about 35 inches, and the rest were all the 26-28 inch range. I'm having a ton of fun catching these days though since I really only get out once a week, my trips have to count and its been good for me anyways. This is all from a kayak on the dawn shift, I've really settled in that schedule and I love it.

yeah my areas thick with 26-30 inch fish - we've been using the albie rods but get surprised by 20 pounders once in awhile

Quality of the fish has improved this past week in the Merrimac river..still not alot of trophy size fish but enough teen and 20 lb. Fish to make it fun. ..Fished the Saco river(from shore) in Maine last week end and the the bite for 22 to 26" fish was steady and some times hot...I took several low teens sized fish and lost one MUCH larger to a mooring ..I saw pogies in the river at day break Sunday and was able to snag a few...guess what the big fish took.
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I'm fishing on memories only down here.

Got my best fish in the boat this AM. Scale bounced between 43 and 45#. She's still swimming. No picture as I was:
1. Alone

2. 4 foot swell

3. Up against some real nasty rocks.

PB on my boat.

Nice Paul. Congrats. I got schoolies last night.
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Thanks Paul.
2 of my nephews were at the Block Tuesday night and Chris hooked a fish he fought for over an hour and lost when the 50# leader snapped. I'm thinking it was a small Yellow Fin or maybe a School Bluefin. Don't think it was a shark as he would have lost it a lot sooner.

Nice. At least he got to enjoy the tug
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Made another trip today. How much do golf lessons cost?

Nice Paul,
F the pics
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Dark as hell last night, wind kicked up a little, used old machine point to get in tight to rocks (dangerous hey?) , in two different spots,,,
Caught a bunch of what felt like really big rocks, they love eels

Fifth day of fishing in a row,,, R&R tomorrow


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Here's one
My life long fishing buddy's gran son comes out this way once a year. He's the spitin image of his farther who I watched grow up with a rod in his hand. 11 years old, get up at 3 am, no problem, let's get going, I can't wait....
Well last year was less than a stellar trip and I promised next year I'd get him a monster..
Primed him with macs, heads for the Race, throughs one out there, hands him the rod, Sa mash, fights a 25# for what seemed like forever...
It brought me back 35-40 yrs., I could just see his farther at that age wearing the way too large yellow suit, pouring rain, standing in the 16' tin boat with the exact , exact,wide eyed smile on his face, grunting with every pump of the rod.... God I miss those days

Fishing memories are forever
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Attachment 64390

:btu: nice Paul

That they are and we are lucky for it.

Again the weather has kept me on the trailer was hoping to have a better week but its not looking good

Las t week I was at the Race catching but nothing big most 28in to 32 in fish very Fat and very feisty.. 2 notable thing did happen had 2 humpbacks 20 yards off the stern cruise by .. and happened on a huge school of pogies the biggest i have ever seen basically it was a moving football field i saw it not from splashing pogies but it looked like a rust spot .. but they were completely alone was hoping for a Tuna or 2 to show up they were between the race and the SW corner of Stellwagen

Congrats Paul, nice fish no matter how you caught it.

You'll be on the trailer tomorrow for sure,, good seeing ya, went back up there Wednesday ,,, so so, one 20 +
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That is COOL Ray

Have taken 5 of my grandkids fishing this year so far....some are diehards like this, others are "casual"....still tons of fun. One grandson and I hit the rail on the Frances fleet for an all day trip and he never gave up...every minute, and a slow day. We did get two good fluke.

Headed out tomorrow AM with my nephews Father-in -law and his little (10 YO) nephew from Sacramento CA. Hope to get them into some decent fish. We'll see. I'm hoping it lays down as there are Small Craft Warnings up right now.

pretty ugly here too right now...mouth of the river is wild...it'll be a few days before it calms down out front... good time to catch up on some "honey do " chores... and trap some eels.

I cancelled the trip. No place for a couple of "flat landers" from interior CA. We'll try tomorrow.

I like this thread and I would like to keep it going:

It was only my second time out fishing this season because I have been too busy selling and buying a house. I was on BI the last week of July and there were pogies on Crescent Beach during the day. I had never seen that before. On Sunday night during the new moon and right before the nor’easter and I had teen size stripers on every cast for two hours. They were aggressively feeding on large pogies. I stopped counting at 15 fish and lost around 10. I was exhausted and secretly hoping it would end but there was no way I could leave until it stopped. The seas were really big which kept the fish in close for the first three hours of the outgoing. I could tell the fishing were moving to deeper water because toward the end the fish were hitting the plug as soon as it hit the water. I was completely alone and it was pitch black out which made fixing my broken headlamp an impossibility. My headlamp strap malfunctioned causing the light to cover my face but I could not stop to fix it while fighting fish. When I did stop it was too dark for me to figure out what was wrong with. I spend the night with the strap whipping my head and the light slowly slipping down in front of my eyes. My boot became untied and filled up with sand but I did not notice until it was really bad. I live for nights like this which are a total blast. Glad to see so many teen size bass around.

Hunting Alone.
 

It doesn't happen often having good fishing alone. It almost never happens in the Canal environment. It almost never happens along the NJ beaches.

I took a 23-0 this AM all alone on a riggie. All Alone because the weather was delightfully #^&#^&#^&#^&ty so the softie boaters were docked.

I sweated thru my rain gear last night as the rain permeated thru my gear in the opposite direction. Soggy is an understatement. Oh yeah and I didn't catch a thing. Lots of other nit wits out there with me too.
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GB and I fished off Westport today, schoolies everywhere, but mostly small; although Greg managed two just over 28".
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Took the boat out on Monday to look for Bonito. I had caught a couple of them last week so I thought I might find them again. No such luck this time. What we did find was pretty good though.

Pulled up to a rocky area where the dropping tide was creating a pretty good rip. My guest and I began by both hooking up immediatly with keeper size stripers. We went on catching on every cast like that for a good two hours. We had to take a break after a while to hydrate then went right back to the frenzy.

On the way back in I saw a fin sticking up out of the water, so I slowed down and turned the boat in that direction. It took me a minute to figure out that it was an ocean sunfish, basking on the surface. My buddy and i started laughing and joking about it being a baby whale or a tuna. "Jay, what is that f'ing thing.....call the aquarium"

love this time of year for the opportunity to catch so many different species...August is when I usually find squeteague, bones are here and albies coming...last year blue runners were in the mix....with the bait and favorable weather you never know what you might find