Haven't seen you much down in my area Larry...but I also haven't been out there once from terra firma for a dawn session.
Been a frustrating season on the whole this year for my stretch of coastline (Scituate, N/S Rivers, Plymouth/Dux Bay). We had decent to tolerable schoolie action early on in the river, but never had the typical run of smaller 10-20# fish that makes for easy (read: repeatable) fishing inside the river and a couple miles upstream.
I have nothing to factually base this on, but this stretch of shoreline seems to really be dependant on a push of fish through the canal to hug the coastline and then set up residence in their "typical" haunts. Hearing rumors of the decent feeds early on around the south coast gave me the impression that the majority of the biomass took the route outside the cape and around P-Town and then moved west into Boston Harbor and Cape Ann...but also hear reports that they might have simply not come inshore up there en mass either
We have had very non-typical water temps inshore around my area- maybe a handful of days where the water in July hit 65 degrees...last year the water was steady in the 68-72 degree range for over a month. I still have a couple pics on my phone I took from July 16th where the water at the top of the tide near the NI can was 49.5 degrees...just bizarre! Temps have been pretty steady in the 58-61 degree range over the last couple weeks, but absolutely a solid 5-6 degrees below normal
Nights from shore have been dreadful as seems to be typical across the coast- I know a couple guys slinging eels who have got a few 25-30# a bit to the north of where I fish, but big rubber (9-12" slugs & hogys) and sp's/redfins have only yielded a few schoolies on my boulderfields. I have launched the boat for a handful of night sessions drifting/trolling over mudflats to decent results- no real bruisers, but fish in the 15-20# class that have made the effort relatively worthwhile...basically dragging eels off the back of the boat and casting rubber off the front and sides (rubber has been vastly out-performing snakes oddly enough)
A typical trip over the last 5-6 years for my home waters has been 15-20 fish, with a small (10# class) keeper or 3 and usually an opportunity at one quality fish (15# +...I know my definition of a decent fish is quite a bit different than most of you!). This year has been typically 6-8 fish and hopefully encountering a small keeper sized fish. Finally got a nice 42" on the edge of a set of breakers in < 3' of water 2 weekends ago...other than that I have one 36" class or better fish off the cliffs all year. I was at close to 30 fish 36" or better by this point last year
Couple trips down to the ditch in early/mid May were efforts in futility...haven't been back there since.
I have found some peanut bunker feeds over the last couple weeks, which is a change...it had been a while since I had bass spitting up peanuts on the boat, but good to see some around. Trying to stay optimistic that having some bait inshore will help with a fishable fall run
