07-11-2001, 09:52 PM
BOSTON HARBOR & SOUTH SHORE- Stripers 7/11/01<br><br>The highlight of this week has been the movement of the big bass off Stellwagen Bank and on to the coastal ledges. Giant bluefin tuna have shown up on the Bank forcing the stripers to the coast. As a result,<br>Minot’s Ledge off Cohasset turned on big-time after the 4th, with numbers of 40 inch plus linesides many exceeding 30 pounds. Mackerel are in great abundance up and coast is waters 40 feet or deeper providing the forage for the schools of marauding bass. This westward migration has coincided with the opening of the commercial bass season. Further, the bluefish are showing just outside the ledges in good numbers also.<br><br>Inside Boston harbor, the primary bait-fish is still the silverside and herring. Surface presentation worked extremely well this week in Quincy Bay and the inner harbor. Gurglers, sliders like Winslow’s Afternoon Delight and Capt. Bill Strakele’s (508-255-5223) foam-headed poppers on floating Wonderline produced keeper-size bass in the early morning. Anthony Iccarino from San Carlos,CA, an Orvis Boston referral, took his personal best 16 pound, 32 inch striper as well as another 30 inch keeper using one of the large foam poppers on Friday in Quincy Bay. On Roger Thuot’s (Princton, MA) trip, a 32 inch, 15 pound bass took the same first-light surface presentation early Saturday morning. We finished the day on Minot’s Ledge after the morning tide change. Large epoxy-headed herring patterns and large mackerel patterns produced numerous follows from some really big stripers on the ledge. The only takers were linesides up to 27 inches, probably due to the high sun and clear water off Cohasset. <br><br>Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were especially productive for big stripers both in the Harbor and on Minot’s ledge on the South Shore. Nick Prifone’s (Hingham, MA) trip on Sunday using light-trolling tackle produced double-digit numbers of “keeper” bass from the Ledges. The two largest landed were 44” and 41” –pulling the scale down to 35 and 27 pounds respectively. The start of Shawn Gallagher’s (Mt. Laurel, NJ) three-day striper trip produced multiple fly and light-tackle bass up to 37” on both Minot’s Ledge on Monday and in Boston Harbor and the ledge on Tuesday. White Texas-rigged Slug-gos and Fin-S baits in gray and white worked well on light-spinning tackle while large poppers and herring or mackerel patterns like Blanton’s Sar-Mul-Mac produced on the long-rods. Garmin’s G-Map GPS allowed us to navigate up to the Harbor from Cohasset in pea-soup fog for Monday’s trip. In Quincy Bay, we found fins and tails on the surface. The New Jersey boy’s surface presentations worked their magic. The first two bass were twin 37 inch, twenty-pound linesides.<br><br>Wednesday (7/11/01) morning’s outgoing tide produced an explosion of activity in Quincy Bay for Shawn Gallagher and friends, Adam and Steverino, final day fishing in the Boston area. Herring and tinker mackerel and the favorable tide set the table for our best day for big bass in Boston to date. Before the morning blitz was over the Jersey Boys each caught their personal-best striper on fly and light-tackle using Strakele’s 3/0 poppers in white and chartreuse and white Slug-gos. Shawn’s 40 inch, 24 pound lineside took top-honors followed closely by Steve Baugh’s two 38 inch 22 pound twins and Adam’s 36 inch 19 pound keeper. 15 keeper-bass came to net and were released with the Boga unharmed. Numerous triple hook-ups were common as well as a few quad-hook-ups. Orvis’s Tom Evenson fishing on Tom Keer’s LIZA B, took his personal best bass—35”, 15 pounds-- on the new 8 weight Prototype T3 high-modulus graphite rod using Keer’s epoxy-head herring pattern. I had the opportunity to cast this rod. It is a cannon!<br> <br><br>Capt. Mike Bartlett<br>B-Fast Charters<br>www.bfastcharters.com<br><br>Capt. Mike Bartlett<br>B-Fast Charters<br>www.bfastcharters.com