Blackbirds

The blackbird continues to be my favorite and most consistent night fly.  The ones left in my box from last year had rusty hooks and were starting to look pretty beat up and scraggly.  I decided to tie a few fresh ones up for myself and for some friends hoping they will have some of the same success I've had.  I added a picture to the Striper Flies page.

They look a little creepy head on.

Little epoxies

Here's a basic, little saltwater pattern that works well imitating small, thin bait.  I don't tend to fish them that often preferring to throw around bigger patterns but if the fish are focused on little bait sometimes this fly will do the trick.  I've tied a few that have caught bonito and false albacore also but I haven't been that lucky yet.  These are going out to some friends and I'm hoping they have better luck than I.

A little late

Tied these guys a little late to fish for stripers this year considering we got about 8" of snow last night.  I'll be prepared for next year.  Can't have enough.  I'd hate to run out when there are big stripers around.

A day to remember

I figure if I keep going fishing eventually I'll have a good day.  Last time out striper fishing I had a day I'll be sure to remember for a while.  Headed out with my friend John on a beautiful, fall day that felt more like July than the end of September it was so warm and humid.  The day started slowly with no sign of fish at the first spot and it took a while to hook up in the second spot where John caught a small striper.  It got a little more interesting when John hooked up a much larger fish that broke him off in a frenzied thrashing on the surface at the end of a long cast.  From there it was my turn and I experienced some of the best big striper fishing I've had on the Maine coast.  For the next couple of hours I spent more time fighting fish than I did actually casting.  The only disappointment I had was losing what I think was the largest striper I've ever hooked.  After landing a few good fish I hooked one that didn't feel anything like the others.  It was a whole other class of fish.  It powered it's way out into my backing with a few slight pauses.  I put a lot of pressure on the fish but never felt like I had any control over it.  At one of the pauses my line went slack and at that moment I thought I broke the fish off only to find out after retrieving my line that it pulled the hook.  I was a little in shock but was happy to get the chance to even play with such a beast.  Here are a few pics from the morning that I hope you enjoy.

Guitar Minnows

Guitar minnows are my go to fly for stripers in lots of different conditions. I turn to this fly when I'm done fooling around and feel like I need to get a fish in the boat. It is a clouser variation developed by Jim Bernstein at Eldredge Bros. Flyshop in Cape Neddick, Maine. One might think it is nothing more than a clouser minnow at first glance but there has been a lot of thought that has gone into this fly. There are subtle differences that come to mind such as the weight and placement of the eyes, the gills, and angle of the bottom bucktail to give balance to the fly and probably more that Jim could point out. He even has fine tuned the presentation of the fly. Put all these things together and this fly is deadly.

This fly is more commonly tied with white neck hackle for the tail.  The fly can have a little different wobbling or twitching action when tied with the feathers.  I prefer the bucktail version since most of the fly is bucktail already, the fly body swims and flows in the same motion.  Olive/seafoam/white is the original basic color scheme I was shown and fished although a bronze top is quite popular.  I tied up a few more variations to match other basic baitfish color schemes and also to test out additional flash.

Here is a very good, detailed step by step video and recipe from youtube done by Jim.

I added a link to striper flies in the navigation bar at the top of the blog with some more guitar minnow pics.  I hope to keep adding more striper flies to this page as I get around to tying and photographing them.

Striper taken on a guitar minnow Sunday.

Summer shots

Few more shots from this summer.  It's been a good one for sure.  Looking forward to the fall.  I've started filling in some holes in the flybox for what I'm hoping is a good fall run.  I put up a few pics to remember what stripers look like.  Just kidding....it has been tough but not that tough.

Sign of fall

School of small baitfish I found stacked up in a corner made by a beach and jetty last night.  No game fish around unfortunately but they can't be far behind.

August slump

Fishing seems to have slowed.  The water inshore has really warmed up and I've been on foot a lot lately which has made it challenging.  I'm still finding fish but not the same numbers and they sure aren't biting as well.  I've tried fishing off the rocks a little and working the higher incoming tides to find some cooler water.  Lots of bait around still especially especially mackerel and sandeels.  I don't mind a little slow fishing this time of year.  I'm still enjoying the sunrises and warm sunny days.  I've taken a lot more pics of sunrises than fish lately.

Picked this one up first thing in the morning.  Should keep me motivated until the fall.

July stripers

Got a late start on the striper season this year due mostly to family commitments but since late June and right through July I've been fishing as much as possible.  I made about a dozen trips out to the salt both from the boat and shore.  This July has been some of the best mid summer fishing I've ever had.  The numbers of fish weren't the same as past years but the consistency of the fishing, quality of the fish and the different fishing opportunities that presented itself have been amazing.  In all those trips I only got shut out once and that was on the shortest trip which consisted of a quick couple of hours before work.

I've had a chance to fish with a few new people.  James from Big Pike Flies visited all the way from Iowa to give striper fishing a try.  We worked hard for them but he ended up catching the big striper of the day 2 days in a row.  I also got to fish with a new friend of mine Travis who is becoming a pretty hard core chaser of stripers on the fly.

Lots of bait around this year especially sandeels.  It seems like they have brought the fish into the shallow flats after them.  Crabs continue to be effective also.  Sight fishing on the flats has been very good.  The size of the fish combined with how shallow they have been going and the bright sun have made for a lot of fun.  I've had many schools of fish and large singles swim right up to me this summer.  Sometimes all I need to do is get a fly out to them and they'll eat and other times they don't seem as interested and need a more precise presentation.

The more I get out the more in touch with what is going on I get and the success and enjoyment increases.  Here are a just a few pics from this season.

 

 Solid striper taken first outing of the year on a foggy morning.

Blackbird fools another one in the dark.

Ridiculous day of 30"+ fish.

Grocery pollock gets chewed on by this 32 incher.

John releasing another one.

Flats release

James hooked up again.

Big striper flies is more like it.

Another one sent back.

Working the rocks.

Travis with an early morning flats fish.

Sand eels on the flats.

Chased these little guys in the surf one beautiful, sunny morning while they chased around scattered schools of sandeels.

Had to work hard for this one which I could see swim up and eat a crab.

Crease flies

Had a few friends over for our Tuesday night tying event.  Alan has been tying crease flies lately because I think he figured he should have at least one fly for stripers that he doesn't need to drag on the bottom.  I thought I'd join him and make an attempt at tying them also.  I've fished crease flies here and there with decent success for stripers and freshwater bass but have never tied them myself.  Yes I actually bought a few flies to fish with as hard as it is to admit it.

Alan is much more skilled painting with the nail polish than I.  I'm reasonably happy with the way they turned out though and they should catch a few fish.

Bunker flies

I've been told that the flies I have been tying for muskies aren't big enough. So I dug through my striper fly boxes and pulled out some of my old bunker and grocery flies. I don't have as many opportunities to fish these flies anymore for stripers so maybe they will be better put to another use.

Stripers

Stripers seem to be transitioning over into their summer patterns in the area. Water temps are up and we have had a couple of weeks of hot, humid weather. I haven't made any terribly long excursions into the salt lately but have been sneaking out for a couple hours here and there. I was still catching fish every time out until last night where I pulled a skunk for the first time since the first day of the season for me. It was still a beautiful evening to be out.

I still haven't seen any great action outside around the structure but reports have been coming of people finding some fish out there and offshore too. I've mostly stuck to the beaches close to the rivers and estuaries. One night last week I saw some pretty good surface activity as it got dark. Normally I don't see much sustained surface feeding this time of year so it was encouraging. There is still lots of small bait including herring and sand eels around. A couple of times last night the terns were in a frenzy picking off the small bait trapped against a sandbar or shoreline. I didn't see a single fish though in all the activity.

Lately the most consistent fly I've been using is this size 2 guitar minnow which I have a lot of confidence in for matching the small bait we have around right now. Initially it might just look like a half & half clouser minnow but there has been a lot of fine tuning and tweaking of the pattern to improve it. I'll go to this fly over any normal 1/2 and 1/2 and sometimes those little subtle differences make all the difference.

Sunday stripers

Headed out with John at 2:30 am this morning hoping to find a bite in the dark on the last of the outgoing tide.  It was a much different night than the last time we got such an early start.  This time it mostly clear skies under a full moon so we were able to make a quick run to where we wanted to start fishing.    I love how peaceful it is fishing in the dark.  I started with a good sized blackbird and we picked up a couple of solid fish while it was still dark.  I wasn't even awake when I landed this first fish.

Blackbird in action

Once it got to be light we decided to fish some of the outer rocky structure.  We haven't found much at all yet this year outside but there should be some good fish set up by now.  We worked some of my favorite structure without seeing a single striper.

There were loads of pollack out there which is a good sign.  I have a feeling that we will have to do a lot of searching to locate fish this summer on the structure.  I don't mind as long as we are able to pick up some decent fish here and there.

I finally hooked up fishing a grocery pollack over some sand.  I missed the first hit on this cast but this fish or his buddy hit again and I got a hook into him.  There was another striper at least this big chasing this guy around during the fight.

Off to fight another day.

A couple flies that worked best today.

Another great day to be out on the water.  We had to work for the fish but can't complain about the average size of these fish.  On the way back in we saw some massive schools of small bait at the mouth of the Scarborough marsh.  Lots of bird activity but very little fish showing themselves.  It was a good ways into the incoming tide so it's possible that the fishing was hot either side of low.