A friend of mine calls striped bass “rockfish”.  He prefers that name because they are often found around rocks.  It’s tough to argue with his logic, as well as his catch rate around rocky coastal zones concerning striped bass.  While I prefer the name “striper”, I agree rocky areas hold fish.  Each Summer I spend two weeks or so at a particular beach in Southern Maine.  I fish the sand flats, sand drop offs, trenches,  tide lines and most importantly, the rocks.

Over the past decade and a half, I’ve caught hundreds of stripers around this beach.  I tend to have my greatest success within three hours, either side of low tide.  It’s easier to locate fish around a beach during low tide.   There is less water, you gain structural visibility and the fish/bait become compressed.  Seeing a beach during low tide provides the angler with visual clues as to where to fish.  With the exception of some surface activity/diving terns/busting bait, the majority of my experience includes blind casting to promising target zones for striped bass.  This technique works and it wasn’t uncommon to land a dozen fish in a morning.

Last year, I varied my fishing routine and began to pursue greater sight fishing possibilities.  One day while I scouted around a rock jetty, I stumbled upon plenty of fish, cruising the edge of the rock jetty.  As a result, this year I set a goal to pay my angling dues fishing a particular rock jetty.  My goal was to sight fish and land a 36″ striped bass on a crab fly.  I tied up several mottled olive EP Fiber patterns, added plenty of rubber legging and weighted my patterns with heavy eyes.  I anticipated my return trip to Southern Maine all year, as I wanted to match wits with those shallow water, rock cruising stripers.  Well, I confess that I fell an inch short of my angling goal.  I landed and measured a 35″ striped bass, but couldn’t quite match a yardstick.

Still, I’ll gladly take a fish that size in shallow water.  It was a rush to spot it cruising near the base of the rock jetty, get in position, lead the fish with a cast, tease the crab fly and finally watch that fish swirl around, flare its’ jaws and engulf my crab pattern. It had a been a while since my 8 weight reel sizzled.  I landed a few more fish and lost another large fish, all on crab or tiny flounder flies.  Truth be told, I experienced more rejections than I could count.  My hook up rate might have been one fish per 25 presentations.  These fish can be jittery and very cautious.  Many times, a fifteen foot lead on a cast would spook them, especially with bright sun overhead.  There were other times when a fish might rush my fly, hover over the crab pattern and then lazily swim away.  I experimented with all types of slow retrieves, or no retrieve at all.  I fished a stealthy 15′ leader tapered to 12 pound  flourocarbon, along with employing a clear intermediate line, as well as trying a floating line.

It was a humbling, yet highly challenging and rewarding form of saltwater fishing.  I’ve caught easier bonefish in the Keys or dumber WBD browns than some of these shallow water, bright sun stripers.  No doubt, I’m already scheming with new techniques to entice these selective stripers.  Did I mention that I saw several pods of fish that contained 40″ plus brutes?  The prospect of sight fishing and hooking one of these hefty fish already has me excited about next season.

For nearly fifteen years I’ve fished the beaches and rocks between Kennebunkport and the Saco River in Southern Maine.  I  just returned from a peaceful two weeks of beach time at my parents cottage on Hills Beach.  I managed to fish most mornings.   Typically , I would fish for several hours, anytime between 4 am and 10 am.  Most of my angling forays resulted in lousy fishing.  Uncooperative tides, warm river water (70 degrees), warm ocean temps, bright sun, and a lack of schoolie stripers created poor fishing conditions.  For the first eight days of my trip, I barely succeeded in locating a few stripers.  This was unusual. In year’s past I had little problem catching fish during the day.  My wife had to put up with my lamentations about the crappy fishing conditions.  I know how good a fishery it is and was disappointed.  Bloggers also chronicled the slow conditions and scarcity of fish, while shops  touted great conditions.  Eldredge Bros. Fly Shop was one of the few fly shops that admitted concern about a  lack of schoolie fish, as well as the prevalence of  bigger fish uncharacteristically rejecting flies .

My favorite angling highlight during the first week was rescuing a 4′ Atlantic Sturgeon.  I easily hand caught, tailing this majestic fish as it was going belly up in shallow water.  There was a heavy rubber tube wrapped around the gills (most likely used for commercial fishing). The gills were flared and this fish was fighting for survival.  I delicately removed the tubing and held the fish up current.  I  carefully revived it until it was able to swim away on its’ own power.  This was my second annual encounter with a sturgeon (last year I randomly landed a 52″ species on a fly) and I’m pleased that I was able to help it survive.  I doubt this fish would have lived much longer, especially stuck on a shallow sand bar.

On my ninth day, I abandoned the beaches and targeted the Saco River and rock jetties.  As a result, my fortune changed .   I experienced periods of exceptional fishing.  With the low tide in the morning, pods of stripers and blue fish crashed on schools of silversides and sand eels during the outgoing tide.  It’s impossible to miss the action, as terns hover and screech above the maelstrom, eager to pick off injured bait.  If the terns commotion wasn’t enough,  softball sized explosions in the water gave away the presence of the piscatorial predator and  trapped bait. Paddling my kayak, I positioned myself upstream or across from the melé and cast an intermediate 8wt w/ a sparse  chartreuse or olive, sand eel/silverside fly into the fray.  It’s important to mention, that you need to concentrate on slowing down your retrieve and to not become unraveled by the commotion.  If I managed to place several good casts into the scene, I would be rewarded with a hook up of a striper or bluefish.  Most of the blues and stripers were between 20″ to 30″.  I never fished steel leaders, opting for 30lb flourocarbon and managed to not loose many flies nor blues.  However, I was sloppy with fighting several hefty stripers and foolishly lost three fish that could have pushed 10 lbs.

Pulling on so many fish in that strong current, from a kayak, wears one out!  I decided to anchor on the rock jetty and observe the scene from above.  To my surprise, the water on the beach side of the rock jetty was placid and there were large stripers milling about!  I hurriedly tied on a crab pattern and began to hunt cruisers.  These 25″ to 35″ striped bass traced the rock contours, looking for crabs, stray sand eels, baitfish, flounder, baby lobsters, etc.  It was great game scrambling on the rocks, getting into position and attempting to time a cast to a cruising fish.  Gin clear water, minimal current and selective fish.  It reminded me of my best bonefish, permit and tarpon experiences in the Keys. I experienced lots of interest in my crab patterns, but only managed a few takes each trip.  Overall, I landed seven sight fished stripers with the smallest 24″ and largest 29″.  At one point, I flung a 70′ cast, intercepting two trophy stripers that might have reached 40″.  Great fun and agony watching them initially speed up, show  interest and then turn off.  There are plenty of nuances in fishing crab patterns and I certainly plan to improve my arsenal.  If you haven’t yet made a trip to the Northeast for stripers and blue fish, go for it!  It’s a great way to combine family and fishing, as well as wet a line for  nearby saltwater trophies.  It looks like I’ll have another year to mull over ways to fish a crab patterns, as well as tying new and improved crab imitations.

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For a final summer hurrah, I headed to Maine with hopes of catching larger striped bass.  Ignoring the less than ideal tides and the developing hurricane off our Southeastern Coast, I drove the 7.5 hours to Hills Beach/Biddeford Pool.  The weather didn’t cooperate and angling was tough.  It blew hard the first three days and kayaking was dangerous/challenging.  Heavy rain and large swells kept me off the water for two days.  I did manage to find a fish or two, but nothing spectacular.  There wasn’t bait (sand eels, pogies or herring) around and I only spooked one fish on the flats.

To end the trip, I contacted Tom at Eldredge Brothers Fly Shop. http://www.eldredgeflyshop.com/ It is a first rate freshwater/saltwater fly shop w/ great service, an outstanding fly tying selection and honest local reports.  Eldgredge Brothers also offers a guide service, so I asked Tom for a recommendation.  Within two hours, Capt. Mark Drummond-http://www.fishlikemad.com called me and we agreed upon a location and time to fish.

I met Capt. Mark nice and early 5:20 am in Pepperall Cove and we fished for stripers in the Pascatagua River and outer ocean rocks.  Early on there were some stripers busting on herring and terns diving.  Nice to see surface  activity and we soon hooked up w/ a 22″ fish.  After chasing a few more pods of scattered bait/fish,  we decided to pursue bigger bass on the outside.  Capt. Mark operates a very smooth, easy to cast from 24′ custom boat that is ideal for fishing bays, rips or rocks.  He expertly manuvered the boat, angling me w/ the wind to make long casts to the rocks/swash/troughs.  We managed another decent bass, but the fish just weren’t there.  I sure would like to fish those rocks under better conditions.  Our best guess is that the recent storm activities put off these fish.  Our decision to chase cow bass outside limited our total fish count, as we likely could have located more schoolie sized fish within the harbor.  Nonetheless, it was a pleasure to fish w/ Capt. Mark.  He has an easy temperament, knows the water, ties quality flies, communicates well as a guide and has a very fishy boat.  I would recommend Capt. Mark to any of my friends looking to fish the Portsmouth/Kittery/York waters for bluefish/mackerel/pollock/shad/stripers.

Striped Bass fishing in Maine was very solid during late July and early August.  I fished Hills Beach and the Saco River area (located halfway between Kennebunkport and Portland) and landed plenty of 20″ to 27″ fish.  Typically, I would fish on either side of the low tide, wading the beach or paddling my tribalance kayak.  The striped bass were chasing schools of 4″ sand eels.  As the sand eels dropped back from the shallows, or moved towards shallow water, the bass fed on them.  Sometimes I located them by blind casting, other times the bass fed on the surface and busting fish, along w/ screeching terns reveled their presence.  Great fun to throw a popper or gurgler on an 8wt and solicit surface strikes.

The biggest surprise of my trip was fair hooking a 50″ Atlantic Sturgeon on a fly and bringing it in.  Initially, I thought that I had hooked a four foot plus cow striper and was ecstatic.  Oddly, the sturgeon didn’t put up a spectacular fight, especially considering the length of this fish.  After two short runs and a minor tug of war, the sturgeon rolled near the boat and I brought this prehistoric fish to my kayak.  The struggle was minimal, until I put my Boga Grip in its’ mouth.  Once gripped,  the fish rolled, shook and thrashed around and nearly jerked me out of the kayak.  The rolling reminded me of an alligator, rolling to drown and crush prey.  Anyway, this was a very rare catch and I was still pleased.  Very cool to see this  armor like fish,  hold it and snap a few pics, then let it go.

No bluefish this trip, but they should be marauding the beaches any day now.  Also, striped bass is a tasty table fare.  We enjoyed fresh grilled and pan fried striped bass fillets for two nights.  If you haven’t fished in the Northeast for saltwater species, give it a try!