07/10/2019
Let's go fishing!
Happy Independence Day 2019! The fishing remains strong up and down the coast. We are starting to see some fish drop out of the rivers and take up residence on the beaches, islands, and deep water ledges. We are also seeing new fish still arriving daily. Just yesterday while on an early morning trip we were able to get into a pack of small bass that were covered in sea lice. It also seems that with the daily arrival of new bass to the area, we are also seeing more and more schools of Pogies. These fish are stacked heavily from York, up to Bath in the Kennebec River. We traveled from Pine Point to Fortunes Rocks the other day surveying the multiple schools and looking to find which schools held bass on them. Tightly packed schools, and tell tale “holes” in the school were the signs we needed to see when determining which school to fish.
Along with the massive amounts of Pogies in the area, the mackerel fishing remains strong, and the sand eel population is booming as well. Now that we are into July, and the temperatures are heating up finding fish will mean focusing on water that is either moving, deeper, and cooler. If you can find all three, all the better. The fish will still be schooled up, but may not be showing on the surface. Using your electronics, or slow trolling a tube and worm will allow you to pin point where the fish on a given day.
Once you find the fish, you can set up on them with either flies, lures, or bait. Deceivers, clousers, sand eel, and simple baitfish patterns are all good starting points for anglers looking to connect with the fly rod set up. More involved patterns can be dialed in once you get an idea of what the bass are feeing on. i.e. Crab patterns, or Large Hollow flies that imitate bigger baitfish. Soft plastic lures, SP Minnows, Metal lip swimmers will be for best bet for the bass. As far as the bait goes, live mackerel, live pogies, or chunked (both), clams and eels are all going be productive this time of year.
The fishing should continue to produce, area beaches, the Scarborough Shoreline, and the multiple rock piles that dot the coast heading south are all holding bass right now. Good luck out there!
Capt. Lou Tirado
