Friday, June 4, 2004

By Frank Dwyer

Marblehead: The Lead Mills Bridge area has fished well over the last week. Both bait and artificials have worked well, taking stripers on the moving tides. Reports from Devereaux Beach have also been good with both fly and spin anglers doing well. Large herring pattern flies do well, especially in the wind we've had over the last week.

Salem: Salem Harbor and the Danvers River continued to produce numbers of striped bass. As along most of the North Shore, mackerel are now readily available in Salem waters. Salem Willows Pier has been fishing well for mackerel, with anglers using herring rigs and mackerel trees. Fish have also been to reported to be active in the North River.

Beverly: Striped bass fishing continues to be good around Beverly. In addition, shore and boat fishermen have reported decent numbers of flounder being caught. These flatties enjoy the blood and sea worms that bait anglers have been tossing them. Clam strips are also a popular bait. A small float on your line goes a long way in avoiding skates.

Cape Ann: Those large schools of mackerel and herring have made there way inshore and the bass have followed. Rockport and Manchester have reports of nice surface activity in the harbor and just off the beaches. Anglers fishing Singing Beach landed stripers and mackerel. Top-water plugs and gurgler flies have been taking nice bass. The Essex and Annisquam rivers continue to have large numbers of striped bass, mostly in the 18- to 26-inch range. Shore Road in Magnolia has also had bass activity over the last week. Boat anglers off Halibut Point have done quite well in 90 to 120 feet of water with live mackerel. Cod and haddock fishing continues to please both the party boat patrons and those recreational anglers who target them.

Ipswich: Pavilion and Steep Hill beaches were productive spots for anglers this past week. Several schools of stripers were seen feeding on large sand eels, pushing them right up on to the beach. Fly anglers with sand eel imitations as well as larger streamer flies reported taking numbers of striped bass to 30 inches.

Newbury: Plum Island Sound continued to produce striped bass in numbers over Memorial Day weekend. Larger fish were landed this week as anglers increased the size of their bait and lures to weed out the smaller fish. The big fish should only continue to grow in numbers over the next few weeks. The Parker River continued to fish well for both shore and boat anglers, but larger fish are still the exception.

Newburyport/Plum Island: Herring and mackerel have both arrived in the Port, and I personally followed several pods of striped bass on Joppa Flats over Memorial Day as they feasted on herring on the incoming tide. Larger fish are present now, with the largest on my watch going 13 pounds and 34 inches. Word from both the beach front and the river at Plum Island Point are that larger fish have also been landed over the past week. Fly rod anglers have been doing well on the sand bar at the mouth of the Merrimack River during the end of the outgoing and beginning of the incoming tide. While the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge remains closed to anglers, there have been reports of fish being taken at Sandy Point. Cod and haddock party boats are reporting good market-sized fish with only a few dogfish starting to show up.

Salisbury: The river front at the State Reservation continued to produce nice numbers of striped bass over the past week. Anglers drifting sea-worms on a fish-finder rig have been doing well, as have those using cut bait and clams. I even spoke with one angler who landed numerous schoolies on a 3-ounce Kastmaster lure, so it appears that you can add metal to your bag of tricks. The Salisbury ocean front has also been producing fish.

New Hampshire Seacoast: Seabrook, Rye and Hampton have all seen fishing improve over the last week. Stripers have been reported in the Taylor and Blackwater rivers as well as Hampton Harbor. Surfcasters using cut bait (mackerel or herring) have done well along the Seacoast beaches on incoming tides.

Frank Dwyer, fishing and outdoor columnist for Eagle-Tribune Publishing, is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. E-mail him at dwyer.f@comcast.net.

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