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Summer Tactics for Saltwater Fishing in Massachusetts
by Dave Williams (Adam Bolonsky)
How to Beat the Mid-summer
Saltwater Fishing Doldrums in Massachuetts
After spring's striper blitzes along Cape Ann and the
South Shore of Massachusetts begin to calm down, with
fewer surface-breaking schools on the surface and flocks
of birds to mark them, you'll have to work a little
harder if you're looking for fish off spots like
Manchester, Boston, Cape Ann and the South Shore. The
stripers, well-fed if not gorged, have settled into
their summer homes, and now have to be sought out rather
than run after.
Traditionally called the summer doldrums, when anglers
change tactics and lures from spin casting sluggos and
kastmasters and shads to trolling tubes-and-worms,
midsummer saltwater fishing in Massachusetts can be a
discouraging time of year if you don't know what you're
doing.
Here's where to beat the doldrums in areas that
consistently provides good fishing during tactic-switch
time: the shores that lie between Manchester's House and
Ram Islands, and the shores of Magnolia from Kettle
Island to Norman's Woe at the mouth of outer Gloucester
Harbor. These are waters anglers in fast kayaks or small
powerboats can reach from any number of public ramps,
including the ramp behind Gloucester High School, the
ramp behind the police station in Manchester, numerous
landings in Salem and Beverly, and Riverhead Landing in
Marblehead.
These waters, north and east of Salem Sound, are craggy
and island-studded and hold abrupt drop-offs off their
islands' shores. Some of the dropoffs fall twenty feet
or more, falling away from clefts and trenches in the
islands that extend far out underwater.
The clefts and cuts and trenches provide at mid- to low
water natural pools in which bass lie in wait for bait
funneled in by passing swell wash. The drops are drained
and filled by swell typically mild enough to lift
your boat over the rocks rather than dash your hull into
them. Anglers who wriggle into the clefts and drop bait
or jigs often pull up stripers 32" and longer,
especially at dusk and in the early-morning hours. The
fish don't carry the sea lice of spring arrivals. Their
colors have darkened to match the tone of northern
Massachusetts's more shadowy waters. In pre-dawn hours,
catches of the truly large, 38"-plus, come up when the
largest females move in to feed close to shore.
Anglers who try deeper areas and who want more room to
wander and maneuver -- say the ledges at Little Misery
Island, do well to first jig up a half-dozen or so
mackerel, put them in a live well, then liveline them
off Magnolia's Popplestone, Ragged, Stone and Neverfall
Ledges, or off Manchester's Boohoo, Pickett, Gales and
Pilgrim Ledges.
This style of fishing presents a marked contrast to
waters like Duxbury Bay's, which while they also yield
large stripers, do so mostly in the bay's marked
channels, waters that lie over sand, mud, and eel grass
and which have to be trolled monotonously during the
doldrums. Fishing from as far up-bay as the Powder Point
Bridge to down-bay off Clarks Island, where the bay's
channels merge at Saquish Head, trolling is the
operative method during the doldrums of mid-July to
mid-August..
Anyone who chum-and-chunks their way through the
doldrums in this area tends to focus on Saquish Rip,
Browns Bank's outer edges, and the rocky humps off
Gurnet Point, High Pines Ledge, or the waters off Green
Harbor and Marshfield.
In this area, kayak anglers who tire can land on Duxbury
Beach to surfcast with fly fishermen cut over to the
beach at the beach's First or Second Crossovers to flick
flies towards the flat tidal trenches just offshore of
the berm.
One weekly event to try in these waters during doldrums
time is the Thursday night fly fishing series, free, run
by Baymen Charters in Duxbury from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Anglers gather at the shop to draw lots to fish from a
boat for the night. Everybody else strikes out on foot
from shore. The weekly betting pool usually gets turned
over by the night's top rod, and sometimes the pots grow
quite large - a fine way to get a jump on the weekend
with a little friendly competition.
Here are the put-ins:
Manchester: Take route 128 north to Manchester to Pine
Street /exit 16. Take a left at the bottom of the exit
ramp to follow Pine Street about three miles to its
terminus at the head of Manchester Harbor. Take a left
onto route 127 at the intersection and follow about a
200 yards to Manchester center. On the right, look for
the police station and town hall. Take a right at the
police station to small surfaced ramp on the right, next
to the chain link fence. Keep in mind that at low tide
the ramp falls off abruptly, and that you might need to
wait an hour or so for the tide to cover the drop.
Marblehead: Take Route 1a or Route 114 to Route 129;
follow 129 through Swampscott. Look for Ocean Ave. on
the right soon after you enter Marblehead. Take a right
onto Ocean Ave. and follow for about a mile. The
Riverhead ramp and parking lot lie across the street
from Deveroux Beach, and just before the crosswalk. If
you use a trailer, keep in mind that tides below half
draw the ramp's water down to about 50 yards off the
ramp, uncovering a very soft and sticky mudflat.
Duxbury: Take Route 3 south to exit 11/Route 14 Duxbury.
Take a right off the ramp and follow 14 east towards
Powder Point Bridge, bearing right after the police
station, passing over route 3a, and taking a left onto
Washington Street, at the intersection in the marshes,
before taking a right onto Powder Point Ave. Follow
Powder Point Ave. to the wooden bridge, and park in
either the upper or lower lot. The rocky beach is viable
at all tides, no matter how low, so long as you have
four-wheel drive.
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