Right now just might be the most relaxing time of the year to fish for striped bass! For most, the need for fishing ungodly hours and choosing nothing but big bass baits is over and replaced by the simple exhilaration of chasing blitzes. The cows of yesterday may have been supplanted by schoolies and slots but those with tight lines aren’t complaining!

The complexity of the cow chase is over replaced by the fun of fishing surface feeds. When deciding which of his two kayaks he would launch recently, it didn’t take my buddy Steve Langton long as he knew simple would be sufficient. Sonar for the duration of the run is now superfluous since there’s no such animal as a lurking linesider or staging striper, every striped bass in our midst is on the move, feeding aggressively and often in plain sight! How refreshing is that? There is no need figuring out how to read a rip line or wondering which boulder field is likely to hold the bass. Birds and busting fish belie where you should fish and with a sterling report coming all the way in from Salisbury this thing of ours isn’t likely to go away for awhile.

Massachusetts South Shore/South Coast Fishing Report

The words had all the impact of a double-shot of caffeine! “They’re big here, maybe too big”, warned Captain Jason Colby to his crew aboard the Little Sister as they settled onto a tog spot out of Westport that had been holding really big fish. Massachusetts tautog regulations now allow anglers to keep up to 5 fish between 16” and 21” with only one over 21”. For once Jason agrees with the regulators as he prefers to release the majority of big breeders in order to sustain the species. On Friday that spot produced a 12 pound brute, with even bigger possibly on the horizon. What also should be in the near future is cod as water temperatures drop. The conundrum for many leaving the captain’s 31’ Contender, clutching bags of cod and tog fillets, will be which to serve for dinner first!

Being a bass-first guy, Captain Brian Coombs of Get Tight Sportfishing has been a bit distracted as he’s been targeting tog not far from his slip in Tiverton. He’s been seeing the Buzzards Bay blitzes and has occasionally succumbed to sampling the schoolie-through-slot feeds which have been common place. As for tautog he’s already wracked up a number of double-digit fish and traditionally the big fish bite only gets better as November nears. Incidentally both these captains offer open boat trips which are a bargain compared to traditional charter rates.

While many are still catching striped bass on the South Shore, according to Pete Belsan of Belsan Bait and Tackle in Scituate, the feeds have not necessarily been obvious. That’s strange because the scenario farther north has been impossible to miss with spectacular surface displays! In time, expect all those peanut bunker and bass to bring that bedlam to the South Shore. That’s not to say that anglers are not catching, they are with Duxbury Bay, Humarock, the Spit, Rexhame Beach and Little Harbor in Cohasset among the favorites. Until the last semblance of Bay State stripers slip out of town, rivers and estuaries will still hold fish but it will take a nighttime outing to find them.

Greater Boston Fishing Report

Lisa from Fore River Fishing Tackle in Quincy told me that she is seeing more interest in smelt than in years! It just might be an example of success breeding success with some areas featuring anglers nearly elbow to elbow. Hull and Hingham are among the hottest; in addition to the Hull Public Pier in the past anglers have also caught them off the A Street Pier. Piers in Hingham Harbor have been giving up smelt as has Hewitts Cove. Another less obvious smelt spot is off the dockage behind the CVS on the Southern Artery. Smelt spawn upstream in the Town River and they have to swim past this place to reach it. Farther north, there is Summer Street as well as various piers/marinas throughout the Charlestown and Winthrop areas. The Winthrop Public Pier, Crystal Cove and most anywhere you can find access to a lit pier in that town could hold smelt. A wildcard may be the Deer Island Pier, the lights of which attract grass shrimp which are the favorite prey of smelt.

For those who shrug their shoulders at the mention of smelt and discount them as merely “bait”, there have been impressive striper-on-peanut bunker blitzes going off at Nantasket Beach, Point Allerton and Wollaston Beach. The Weymouth Back River and Neponset River are inshore areas which should produce at dark. Tube-and-worm trollers continue to rack up steady numbers of stripers up to the mid-30 inch range with Hangman Island hot. The Triple Threat team has been hitting the ledges off Hull and catching cod, pollock and mackerel! It’s a smart move deploying mackerel near Thieves Ledge as well as Three-and-One-half Fathom Ledge: these ledges are in the path of a renowned migration route where big bass are often encountered on the way out.

Many however are moving on from the salt and embracing freshwater. Options are Plymouth’s Long Pond, which is one of the state’s top trophy trout ponds, and Jamaica Pond which could be considered an urban counterpart. While those two ponds are just as likely to give up a tiger trout, brook trout, or brown trout as they would a rainbow, for strictly rainbows – Houghton’s Pond is a good option.

Massachusetts North Shore Fishing Report

This week on the North Shore reminded me why I pulled the trigger and bought a Hobie kayak over 10 years ago. It wasn’t for the nighttime sleigh rides courtesy of a 40-pound bass, or even the thrill of wrenching a nice fluke off the bottom of a quiet estuary, rather it was because of a fateful day I experienced in the surf of Revere Beach. As I was writhing in the throes of the Surf Fisherman’s Curse one day, the primary symptom of which is that blitzes will always happen just out of casting range, there was one, lone kayak fisher putting on a clinic. When I dared to look, his rod was invariably bent and he was being towed! This week, along with my buddy Marco Cicerano, I revisited that scenario but this time we were the ones casting and catching in the midst of a blitz thanks to our kayaks! Knowing that our quarry would be far smaller than the serpent-slurping night monsters we encounter in summer, we downsized our gear considerably and had a blast with willing schoolies and slots. With the forage consisting of peanut bunker, a 4” pearl Al Gag’s Whip-it-Fish proved too tempting for those bass to pass up. As evidenced by relentless texts on Wednesday from Tomo, of Tomo’s Tackle, we weren’t the only ones having a heck of a time. Red Rock, Preston Beach, Peaches Point, Naugus Head and Palmer Cove were all going off almost simultaneously!

Circle the North Shore, as of this report, the best bass fishing north of the Cape appears to be coming from there!

TJ from Three Lantern Marine confirmed that hunch with a Cape Ann report that was impressive. Pogies, in both big and small versions, have been attracting bass from Manchester Harbor through Gloucester Harbor, beyond the breakwater and out past Halibut Point! Where those adult pogies came from lord only knows but they are a welcome addition to the bait supply. With blues having moved on, mackerel are in abundance again and cod can be found near numerous hills and ledge just offshore. When asked about smelt, TJ thought that piers behind the shop may be productive! The nearby lobster plant is continually “chumming” the waters attracting silversides and grass shrimp, both of which are prey to smelt. All that attractant has also been alluring to striped bass.

Timing was perfect on Wednesday when I spoke to my friends from Surfland Bait and Tackle in Newburyport as a pumped angler in the shop told of a blitz across the border off Salisbury Beach! Anglers wading the ocean front and fishing from the jetty are catching striped bass consistently. One of the more successful anglers has been casting clams off the ocean front at night and catching stripers up to 37”. Upstream areas such as Joppa Flats and Plum Island Sound have been productive also. Another option might be the Route 1A Bridge spanning the Parker River. For years I was fortunate enough to enjoy weekly conversations with the heart and soul of Surfland – the late Kay Moulton. During one conversation, buoyed by a stellar night of bridge fishing for big Boston bass, I asked if there was anything up there comparable to what I experienced. Kay offered up that bridge spot at the Parker River as similar. Eels and bucktail jigs/soft plastics worked best for me when fishing those bridges.

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Massachusetts Fishing Forecast

Late October isn’t what it used to be! Cows may now be few and far between but willing schoolies and slots are certainly putting the fun into the fall. Consider doubling down on Duxbury as the rolling mass of peanut bunker and bass move on by. Rexhame Beach has been real good and Humarock has been hot. The Spit at the mouth of the North River holds stripers picking off herring fry attempting to make it out into Cape Cod Bay. Bigger Buzzards Bay tog are on a tear outside of the Sakkonet River as well as the Westport River. Keep bass gear at the ready as striper surface feeds rage on. Boston bass continue to blitz baby bunker off Point Allerton, Wollaston Beach and Revere Beach. If you’re an angler who values the challenge and culinary side of the experience than check out the improving smelt action off Hull and Hingham. In all probability the North Shore has the most consistent striped bass fishing. It’s impossible to gauge how long the good times will last but from Swampscott through Salisbury you’d be wise to get while the getting is good!