gone fishin

Manchester By The Sea - September 7, 2009

2009-09-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

Took the kayak out for a quick hour spin at black and white beaches, trolling a white sluggo. Landed three stripers within a half hour, two in the mid-twenties. There was lots of surface action out near little and big egg, I just didn't feel like paddling out there. There was one very short surface feed near the rocks, but it only last for a half a minute.

Martha's Vineyard - August 21, 2009

2009-08-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

Menemsha harbor was 'on fire' Friday night. The incoming tide was pushing schools of herring into the harbor and the stripers were going crazy, constantly smashing the surface w/ a few huge blitzes. My eight-year-old son caught his first striper! All fish were caught on a surface plug.

martha's Vineyard - August 19, 2009

2009-08-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

My six-year old son and I went out w/ a guide this morning and absolutely killed them! We ended up landing two bonito, losing another after several great runs. And, we caught a lot of big bluefish. Most of the fish were caught at a shoal called the hooter, which is several miles outside of Wasque. We also hooked up on more blues on East Beach.

Martha's Vineyard - August 18, 2009

2009-08-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Two stripers and three bluefish this morning in Vineyard Haven harbor. There was some surface activity, but nearly as much as yesterday. One of the striper's was caught on a white sluggo. All of the other fish were caught on the fly, smallish bunny flies (white and white / chartreuse). All-in-all, a good morning. Several kayakers showed up around 7:15-7:30 ... I think the word's out regarding where the fish are; they were a little late, at least for the initial onslaught.

Martha's Vineyard - August 17, 2009

2009-08-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

Great morning of fishing at Eastville beach and Vineyard Haven harbor this morning on my kayak. There were bluefish breaking everywhere. I hooked up several bluefish, mostly in the 15 inch range. I ended up catching a keeper striper, too!

Martha's Vineyard - August 13, 2009

2009-08-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

Caught a nice 28.5" keeper tonight, on a falling tide right underneath the little bridge. It took some effort to drag it out from under the bridge, but well worth it! Caught it on a white and chartreuse half-and-half, on intermediate line. It was a great fight!

August 7, 2009 - Manchester By The Sea

2009-08-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

Was on the water by ten of six a.m. Decided to troll a sluggo, rather than do any fly fishing. Ended up catching two, both in White's Beach, in pretty shallow water on the far side (by the big lawn). One was ~24 inches ... the other was tiny, 15 at best.

Manchester By The Sea - July 19, 2009

2009-07-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

Managed to land one fish on a Sluggo, right outside Black Beach to the right rocks. Went out to Kettle Island, but all was quiet, quite atypical. My brother caught 3, one keeper. He mentioned that the fish were everyone right before sunrise.

Manchester by the Sea - July 10, 2009

2009-07-13T03:17:00.000-07:00

Trolled my way from Black beach to Kettle island, dragging a white

sluggo behind me. Ended up catching two on the Sluggo on the

way, both of decent size ~25 inches. Saw pods of fish sipping the

surface at Kettle Island, but was unable to get them to hit my

fly ... I was using a shooting-head line w/ a white and chartreuse

deceiver. I'm planning to go w/ a floating line next time, to see

if that's the answer to these elusive pods. Good thing is, the fish

are there!

Manchester by the Sea - July 5, 2009

2009-07-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Went out early at black and white beaches and kettle island. The wind was fierce. Too much wind to fly fish, but managed to take two (one in the 25 inch range) on a white sluggo.

Something stinks...

2009-06-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

...it's me, getting skunked this morning in Manchester! Went to Kettle (sp?) Island, my favorite hotspot in Manchester. There was no surface action and saw very little bait. I guess that's why it's called fishing, not catching.

Housatonic River in Connecticut - May 30 and 31

2009-05-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Rekindled the annual GartnerGroup fishing extravaganza! We absolutely killed them on Saturday, w/ my boat landing 16 rainbows and browns. I caught a 16.5" rainbow and my boat-mate a 17". Almost all of the fish were caught on 18 and 20 micro midges. What great fun. The second day was a little slower for me, although I managed to salvage a bit of the day by landing a nice 14.5" rainbow at the last run. My boat-mate had a good day, landing at 6-7 nice fish.

Martha's Vineyard - Memorial Day weekend 2009

2009-05-31T18:05:00.000-07:00

Managed to catch my first striper of the year. A little schoolie, but a fish nonetheless! Caught it at the little bridge on an dead high-tide. I was there earlier during the transition, but unsuccessful. Struck out at Tashmoo and Vineyard Haven harbor. The next night I had another on, same place, same situation, but it popped off before I landed it. Went out to Lighthouse beach that night to try my luck. I was there during the low-to-high transition and it looked perfect, but unfortunately didn't produce. I caught both fish on striper crack, w/ intermediate line.

Two days in a row

2009-05-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

Friday, May 01, 2009:

I went back to the same stream, same pool as yesterday, w/ solid results, again! Three nice brook trout, two taken on bead-head green flashback nymph and the other on a stonefly. The biggest one was in the 10" range, which isn't bad given the size of Stony Brook in Weston.

All in all, a great day!

Trout fishing - game on!

2009-04-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Took three today in an hour and a half at a small stream in Weston, MA. I missed a few hits, too. They were all bunch in one pool. All fish and hits were on nymphs, green flashback, weighted prince and small stonefly. Great start to the season!

P.S., I pulled a 12-inch brookie out of Walden this past weekend, worm fishing w/ the kids. There was action all over the place, along the wall between the boat ramp and the lifegaurd house. Most of the people were using powerbait, although one guy was killing them w/ yellow salmon eggs.

Getting back in the game

2009-03-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

I went silent for most of 2008, not because of lack of fly fishing, just a bit lazy keeping my blog up to date. This year, I pledge to keep it fresh!

Looking back, 2008 was not a total bust, although it was generally very tough fishing, consistent w/ many of the discussion groups that I follow. I fished a lot; caught some, but nothing notable. I fished consistently on the Vineyard through the summer. Surprisingly and maybe just bad timing, I never lit it up on Lobsterville. Coops definitely talked a big game there, but I considered it a disappointment. Interestingly, I had a lot of luck in early mornings (in the kayak and on shore) at State Beach, crusing up and down the shore, in mid-August! In the fall, I spent most of the time in the kayak, off of Manchester by Sea. I had some luck and a lot of frustration, when I'd sometimes in the middle of a blitz and unable to have them take any fly. The fall migratory blitzes didn't last long, though.

Here's to a better 2009! I'm confident that I'll make up for a mediocre 2008, especially in the blogging department.

Joppa Flats Newburyport - June 26, 2008

2008-06-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

Fished Joppa Flats late afternoon into the evening, from right before peak high tide to the start of the out-going tide. The flats at high tide were loaded w/ fish. We were on a boat and saw huge stripers rolling just under the surface and plenty breaking the surface. I had my fly and spinning rods w/ me and I threw everything at them (shrimp patterns, worms, striper crack, deceivers (all colors), sand eels, crabs, etc ... sluggos, yuzuri minnows and top-water plugs) w/ no results. It was very frustrating and it was completely unobvious what they were eating. We only saw a couple of hook-ups on other boats so nobody seemed to crack the code.

Martha's Vineyard - Thursday, June 19, 2008

2008-06-23T03:07:00.000-07:00

I did my usual slog through Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven, hitting my favorite spots on State Beach, Lake Tashmoo and Vineyard Haven harbor. It was slow going for most of the evening, seeing no rises and very little bait, until my last (return) stop at the Little Bridge. As I went over the bridge to park, I distinctively heard the tell-tale splash of a fish hitting bait at the surface underneath me. It was late and I was running out of steam, but quickly managed to land two decent size fish (and missed another ... must have grabbed the tail of the fly). Both fish were caught w/ the infamous "striper crack" fly on intermediate line.

June 15, 2008 - Manchester

2008-06-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

Went to black and white beach this morning early. It was dead low when I got there, but about to start the turn. 'Dead' is the operative word, though, as there was no surface action and only a small amount of visible bait. I was in the kayak and covered a good distant, all for naught.

Zero G 9-weight Tip-flex

2008-05-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

After waiting for the Zero G 2-piece 9 weight tip-flex to go on sale from Orvis, it finally happened a couple of months back. I was fairly confident that it would, given that Orvis has been putting so much marketing into the Helios version and they're, like everyone else, getting out of the 2-piece game (a bad decision from my perspective ... I much prefer less pieces than the easier-t0-travel-with trend of the 4+ piece phenomenon.).

I had my first chance to break in the new rod this past weekend and it is a great piece of hardware. I especially like the switch to a tip flex. My other rod is a T3 9-weight mid-flex 2-piece which is an excellent rod, too, but I really like the stiffness of the tip-flex and the power it generated. The downside is that an equivalent fish felt substantially larger on the mid-flex rod than the tip-flex, but I'm not going back :-).

Martha's Vineyard - Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

I spent a few nights fishing there this weekend.

In general, it was slow, but I did manage to catch a few fish.

The first night was brief (I arrived late) and consisted of a stint at Vineyard Haven harbor and the little bridge. The harbor had a decent number of sand eels and I managed to take one small striper on a black deceiver. I also had a significant strike at the little bridge on a white deceiver.

The second night was a bust. I definitely put in my time and the tides were against me, running into a slack tides everywhere ... tashmoo, VH harbor, East beach and the little bridge.

The last night I decided to go to Lobsterville. A good decision, based on a visit to Coop's earlier in the day, although he did say it was hit or miss. I took a couple of nice fish, including one in the 26 inch range. Both fish were taken on a black deceiver, which I switched to after trying a floating sand eel and other small bait imitations.

I didn't see any notable surface action at Lobsterville, but you can tell that it's about to explode!

Manchester - October 6, 2007

2007-10-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

The fishing was tough this morning. My brother and I went out in kayaks before dawn and fished for two to three hours. There was only one short burst where fish broke the surface, maybe five minutes. Other than that, all was quiet.

There were a lot of kayaks on the water today. And, kayak etiquette seems to have gone by the wayside. I was fishing around one of the little islands and three other kayaks converged on me, not more than twenty yards from where I was. I would understand if I was on fish, but I was just prospecting. It was very frustrating, especially because I watched them coming towards me from a half-mile away. It's a big ocean guys!

Hopefully I'll have better luck next time (fishing that is :-)).

Manchester - September 14, 2007

2007-09-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

I went out early this morning in the kayak in Manchester. The weather was cool, around the mid-50s, and the ocean was calm. At this time of year, it doesn't begin to get light out until around 6:00 A.M.

The action was fast and furious, as the fish (stripers) were pretty much everywhere. Before it started to get light, a smallish black deceiver on intermediate line was producing well. As the light set in, the fish continued to break the surface consistently, but the fish stopped hitting the deceiver. I switched over to a small white/gold baitfish imitation that produced some fish.

Unfortunately, worked (and parental duties) called and I had to cut it off.

The biggest fish taken was in the 24-25 inch range.

Sept 7 - Manchester harbor

2007-09-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Decided to play a little hooky w/ a couple of my colleagues yesterday and went out on one of their boats. We were cruising outside of the mouth of Manchester harbor, between the harbor and around Misery island. Not long after mid-afternoon, we found consistently feeding stripers. There were several pods of fish breaking the surface.

It took a couple of lure changes to figure out what work, but eventually hooked up w/ a few 20 - 22 inch fish on a Yozuri floating minnow.

All-in-all, a great day (although, as always, I'd prefer to fly fish :-)).

August 25, 2007 - MV

2007-08-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

I kayaked from the Edgartown side of State Beach to the big bridge and back. It was a little hairy, the fog was thick and the wind was blowing out hard. At one point I let myself get too far out and thankfully there were plenty of cars going along the beach road to allow me to see how to get back.

I decided to hug the shore a little more, staying between the beach and at most twenty-to-thirty yards outside of the buoys.

About halfway to the bridge there were fish jumping everywhere. They were either bonito or bluefish. My fly was snapped off by whatever they were along the shore. I caught a nice bluefish at the bridge. All fish and hits were on a black deceiver on shooting-head line.

Overall, a great experience, aside from the fog and wind.