Maine Striped Bass: Hold The Rope & Look For Fish On Top

by | Salt Water

Striped Bass Video

A call from Jeremy simply saying “I found a bunch of stripers” was enough to send me packing. I packed up my 9 weight fly rod, some clousers and streamer flies and headed down to Southern Maine. He hooked on to his boat and we headed for the nearest boat ramp. It is not usual to describe a boat as to number of seats, electronics, storage, and those little cup holders for the convenience of guests. Jeremy’s skiff (aka “The Weapon”) has none of these! When you ask where one should sit, you are directed to a long rope tied to the bow bracket. This rope is to hold onto while you stand at 3/4 throttle blasting across miles of open ocean and harbors helping to spot Bluefin Tuna, Stripers or Bluefish on the surface. The boat has been stripped for fly fishing purposes and speed, and speed it has! Obviously when fishing to fish breaking on bait the abillity to move and move fast and far has a dramatic effect on the probabillity of catching fish and catch fish we did. We fished a great distance and around Islands, every where fish broke. We fished from Portland to beyond Higgins beach and all sorts of little coves and inlets. We saw and caught fish all day, I saw hundreds of fish breaking on balls of baitfish and learned how to spot baitfish balls that were drifting near the surface. It was a great day on the water and my arm got sore from catching what seemed to be countless numbers of fish. We did not catch any real big stripers, but lot’s of them. And, the funnest part of the day was the visual aspects of the fishing. We never blind casted and only fished to fish that we could see. Some of the fish were in big schools terrorizing bait and other fish were solo feaders or in small pods; cautiously working bait in tough to reach spots. That boat is a weapon!

4 Comments

  1. jeremy on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    greg — great day … i love fly fishing to those tough to access fish when they are feeding on top … takes team work and a bit of finesse with boat the skiff and the fly rod … edging up so close to those ledges with big current is a bit sketchy and those ledges could put a serious hurt on a little skiff … so, its fun because the angler and driver have to work together and find those little windows of opportunity to make a cast to a feeding fish and get it done … we worked well as a team, i thought .. great casting! especially getting the fly where it needed to be, when it mattered! … sorry about the “no frills” on my skiff .. decided to strip away anything that did not serve a fishing purpose and could get in the way .. no seats, no wooden benches, nothing .. no comforts .. just an extension of the rocks and or beach .. but much faster …

  2. greg on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Thanks for a great day of Striper fishing and pointing out the bait fish for me . Sometimes the clor variations are subtle and unless they are breaking I don’t see them, I can now! It appears to catch a Blue Fish I’ll have to go Canal fishing in Naples again. Thanks for a great day on the water.

  3. waterwhippa on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Nice Greg, you can certainly learn alot aboard “the weapon”

  4. Postman on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Nice film!! I am getting totally syked up
    by your east coast movies with stripers, albies and bluefishes!!
    I would love to come over the atlantic and try them out.
    But first i am of to NZ for 5 weaks of SW fishing with makos, kingies, trevallies and kahawaii.
    P-A