Several posts back, I wrote a piece called The Observant Fisherman, which discussed paying attention to the bait and creepy crawly things that stripers love to feed on.

Connor Guth, one of junior anglers, was doing a little fishing on Sunday.  When the action was slow, he started poking around the shoreline. He was lifting seaweed and flipping rocks, when out scurried this little guy. Surprise!

Pretty cool find! Get the butter…

With a week to go in the tournament it’s getting close to crunch time. Early in the tournament anglers came out of the gate landing some really nice fish using bait. That tactic got those anglers in the running, but mid-month a moderate sized striper, caught on an artificial lure, nearly toppled the leader. It was a wake up call and pause for thought!

What will it take to win the tournament?

Their are differing strategies being floated. “Stick with bait and hope for a real monster”… The odds of hooking a big fish using bait are much greater, but will the fish be big enough? “Go to an artificial lure, fish hard, fish at night”… A 36 inch fish caught using lures might just be enough. “Fly fish and hope to hook into a decent fish”… Probably something in the lower 30 inch range would be a contender. Hmmmm.

Which strategy will prevail and who will come out on top? Good luck all!

Living in Phippsburg and close the the ocean, has its advantages. Just going on a quick run to the store, you see miles of river and observe what surface action is occurring. Of late, their has been a huge amount of gull activity and baits everywhere, so surface action is peaking.

Today as the tide fell to low, I took a break and walked to easy-access waters. When I arrived, gulls were stacked up on the shore and one other local fisherman Mike was there. He waved! A few seconds pass… then the obvious question, “anything happening”? A pause then the obvious reply, “Man, you should have been here 20 minutes ago”… then his rod folds over, Mike smiles!

It took no time to get the fly in the water. Bang - fish on! The action only lasted a short while and was followed by a period of inactivity. Mike left and I fished another ten minutes without a strike. I decided to move down the shore before departing too.

Rounding the next point, I see the water flying everywhere and bait racing up onto the seaweed. “No time to fish like now”… So, I drop a fly in the water and am promptly rewarded by several hard tugs, then a hook up. Repeatedly, one schoolie after another for 20 minutes.

Mike shows back up… “Anything happening?” … I pause, “You should have been here 10 minutes ago.”,… then my rod folds over, I smile! 

A couple fish later and the action shuts off. A school comes to the surface further down the shore, then another school starts busting-it-up out in the bay. Major striper action, gull activity and bait everywhere… “It don’t get no better than this”!

Over the last week, my legs have noticed the water temperature is cooling down. With the seasonal weather really starting to impact the water temperature, some recent rains and less daylight, the stage is set. These factors are resulting in changes to the stripers feeding and behavior patterns observed in late summer.

The stripers are really getting organized now. We’re seeing larger schools of fish and more surface action. The bait is readily abundant too. We were out on the Kennebec River yesterday and experienced good action right in the middle of the day. At this time of year the action can get hot anytime during the day or tide. Gull activity was readily apparent throughout much of the river too. The gulls were diving on large schools of bait (alewives) moving about on the tide. Mackeral were also far up the river and chasing the bait.

We found stripers in feeding position on nearly all structure we fished, but the best action we experienced was on the flats.

A large school of stripers had chased bait up onto a flat and were gorging in 12-24 inches of water. The stripers were moving in pods of twenty to thirty fish, and surface splashes and gull activity was readily apparent. When we got onto these fish, we could see, using polarized sun glasses, that for each obvious splash, their were a dozen others lurking just under the surface. These fish were actively feeding, moving along the flat and zig-zagging back and forth.  It was very neat to watch.

We tried fishing with eels with limited success, but landed one nice 32″ striper. Overall, flies were deadly. A 4 inch minnow pattern having a white and olive wing with minimal flash was very effective. Once you got onto the fish, the action was really hot!

The stripers are out there and whether you choose to use bait, artificial lures or flies you can catch them. But, fishing of any type can result in injury. Here are a few of my mini-epic favorites…

Casting flies to stripers busting up the surface can be huge fun, but combine that crazy action, with an adrenaline pump and a stiff twenty knot breeze and you’ve got a challenge. Oh, just one more fish… That one way out there… Ouch!  Their’s nothing like piercing your ear with a #4/0 hook. it’s a good thing they make them stainless.

Slinging lead head jigs can also be a productive means to cover water in search for fish. But, one needs to be attentive to others in the boat. Using an overhead cast and remaining concious of where others in the boat are is key… I acquired a bait casting set up a while ago and learned how to do the underhand cast. For lead head jigs, this underhand motion really works well. Unfortunately, my dad’s head got in the way. Thump… Ouch! Quick get my hat! “Sorry Dad, that must have hurt”!

Bait fishing can be a highly productive means of landing large striper and when you can catch mackeral… it is a favored food of stripers.

My college roomate was in town, so we went fishing. We were fishing the slosh of the outer islands using whole mackeral and had found a school of large stripers working a series of ledges. Nearly every cast was producing a 36-40″ fish. The problem was sea gulls would often dive on the bait. I’d told my friend Dave, “don’t let a gull get your bait”,… but did he listen… No!

So you can imagine, a  sea gull got a-hold of the mackeral and Dave hooked up. The gull was fighting mad, flying overhead with a hook through its bill. It was a bad situation.

Dave reeled the flapping bird to the boat and got him in the water. I grabbed the bird and passed it to Dave with the instructions… “hold him still so I can cut the barb off the hook,… and don’t let him bite you”! Seconds later,… “Ouch,  #@!$%#$$ bird”! The gull had Dave by the finger. Feathers were flying, wings flapping and the gull squawking,… blood was all over Dave’s hand. Chaulk one up for the gull!

Football season may have just started in on the ground, but on the water it is in full swing.

“Hi mom, it’s me Charlie Tuna. I’ve been vacationing here in Maine all summer. Contrary to what I’d heard, the waters really nice. I met some of the locals and they’ve invited to a cookout. OH boy”!

It’s time to fire up the grill.  Another tuna caught on a surface popper using light tackle… Unbelievable! This time it was Chris Grill, the owner of the Kennebec Angler, who got into a nice little “football”. This was the first tuna Chris boated this year, but he’d fought one for about a half hour a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, that one got away at the boat. 

Todd Hibl, Anthony DeBery and Chris Grill were offshore chasing blue fin tuna on Wednesday. The weather was perfect, warm and ultra calm. “We were seeing fish break the surface all morning, but we couldn’t interest them in our surface poppers”. Finally, Chris got one to take and the battle was on. Using light tackle, Chris “whipped it” in about fifteen minutes and brought it along side the boat. Todd Captained the boat while Anthony prepared to gaft the fish.

As it came to the surface and DeBery got ready with the gaft, Chris was heard saying, “I don’t know about the gaft, that’s a lot of fish”. ” Just as he said that, Anthony sunk the gaft into the fishes shoulder and wrestled it on board. The fish hit the deck and started thrashing around, blood flying everywhere. Jumping out of the way, Chris was heard to say “well that’s a lot of man”.  

Over the weekend of September 15th, Dan Shiells landed a 40 inch beauty which was caught at night, using bait and fishing the surf at Popham.

Note the life jacket… When fishing locations with serious rip-tides or large waves, wearing a life jacket, is a reasonable precaution.

Nice going Dan! You should be proud of your accomplishment… That fish is a once in a life time catch.

In September, striper fishing can be really hot, but it’s very dependent on fishing where the fish are. I’ve experienced some incredible action during September, but at times I’ve also felt as thought the waters were totally devoid of fish, and in some instances that was the truth.

Since fall striper fishing represents fishing for schooling fish, it’s often necessary to work hard at finding the fish. Often, fall stripers will bunch up and key in on a particular bait. These behaviors can result in some highly localized action.

Last fall offers a good illustration of such action… In late September the fishing action towards the mouth of the Kennebec River slowed then shut off. I tried fishing several historical hot spots with minimal success and was about to give up for the season. On one particularly nice Sunday afternoon, I decided to take the family boating and explore Merrymeeting Bay. Out of habit, I pitched a spinning road in the boat so the kids could fish. I honestly didn’t expect to find any fish!

When we got up around the “Chops”, I started noticing bird activity and saw a few other boats fishing. When I paid attention to what they were doing, I noticed they were boating stripers. So I set up for a drift and soon the kids were hooking fish. The action was steady and we boated a bunch of nice schoolies before moving on to do the leaf peeping thing. Overall, It was one of the finest fall days of the year and adding some quality striper fishing, really capped off the season.

The point here,… when your not finding fish where they ought to be, move on and try a different spot. Remain flexible and work hard at locating fish. Once you’ve found the fish, with persistence you’ll land some nice ones.