Stewart Doyle, an avid fly fisherman from Crested Butte experiences the striper fishing, and the pristine beauty and tranquility of Maine’s tidal rivers. Not only is the scenery great, but the fishing can be darned good too!

Every year we hear of some new and crazy things fishermen are trying, and this year is no different. Some of the boys at Kennebec Angler have been chasing blue fin tuna using light tackle and throwing surface poppers.

Last week, I dropped into the shop and Chris Grill, the store owner, showed me a picture of him battling a tuna, one he ultimately lost. Anthony Debery, Chris’s fishing buddy had also lost a fish that same morning. They showed me the scarred up popper as proof and it was badly chewed up! This morning I received an e-mail from Anthony that their efforts had produced results, an 80 lb “football”.

Here’s the story…
“It was late in the afternoon. We’d been chasing football tuna all day and catching sharks too. Suddenly, we spotted bait being pushed out of the water and tuna started busting behind the bait. We raced over and I managed to get a cast off with my popper while the fish were still on the surface.  After  two or three pops the tuna whacked it and the battle began.  The fight lasted about 20 minutes before we boated the fish. I was using 80# braid and the rod was a Cape Fear Bluewater (30-50 pound) with a Penn 9500 spinfishing reel. All I can say is wow, what an experience! “

Things are starting to get exciting and the low-tides are coming around to early morning again. This mornings low was right about first light and that’s perfect for striper fishermen.

The weather feels a bit like a fall hurricane is ready to influence our local weather and it’s moist and hot out there. The weather reports indicates “rain” in the five day forecast, and rain will certianly sweeten the water, muddy things up and change the fishes behaviors.  And such changes definitely influence the feeding patterns and behaviors of the stripers.

In the last 48 hours we’ve noticed a distinct change. Although the “bite” is still oriented towards a short low-light window, surface action is beginning to pick up and the stripers are feeding more aggressively. On three different occasions we’ve seen large schools of stripers moving in on the coming tides and as the tide has turned, chaos. Bait’s readily available, and the stripers are beginning to school up and are starting to chase bait to the surface. This represents the beginning of the fall feeding frenzies we anglers look forward to.

Last evening on the tides turn, we saw stripers busting up the surface and major gull activity in the Kennebec River. This AM, as the tide turned, a good bite was experienced and 25-30 fish were caught in a 30 minute window… So keep the faith and spend some time fishing. It’s just starting to get good!

Wednesday September 5th, 2007 Doug Rafferty aired a nice news piece on the tournament. For those of you interested in viewing the piece it’s posted on their website. Click here to view the report.