Before summarizing the new catch limits set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (AMFSC), let me start with a simple observation: This was the worst year of striped bass fishing in New England I have ever experienced.
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False albacore have been arriving off of Cape Cod. They are the perfect antidote to the summer doldrums — which I had a bad case of.
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If you care about striped bass, make your voice heard by going to one of these hearings scheduled across New England — or submit your written comments. Complete info can be found here.
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This June, I drove north to the Gaspé peninsula in search of Atlantic salmon. I’ve been very fortunate to have made this drive north almost every summer for the last 25 years. But this year would be different.
Read More >>One of the reasons I love fishing is that it takes you to beautiful places in search of beautiful things. If you’ve ever held a tuna, or a salmon, or a trout, or any number of other fish, you know that these can be beautiful creatures.
New photos from aerial photographer Wayne Davis help make this point. Flying over Cape Cod bay recently, he spotted huge schools of striped bass. So numerous are the stripers, that they remind me of the sight of a large flock of starlings against the sky. They’re awesome, in the true sense of that word.
One of the things I love about these photos is how they elevate bass. In my opinion, striped bass often do not rise to the top of the list of “beautiful” fish. Their stripes are geometric, their color palette more limited, more two-toned, than many of their hard-tailed saltwater companions. This doesn’t diminish my admiration for them, or my love of chasing them. I just don’t think of them as stunning in the same way as opalescence of a false albacore. These photos make a different case.
First, they were south of me: schoolies in Rhode Island. Then, they were suddenly north of me: schoolies on the North Shore. It was like I was the bulls eye no one could hit — until I hit it yesterday afternoon.
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If fly fishing is a sport of delayed expectations — the long winter, the thousand casts — then April, the historic start to trout season and often the month when early schoolies arrive, is typically the month of fulfilled expectations. This year, that may not be the case.
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As the weather begins to warm, many are asking: what will this long winter mean for this year’s fishing season?
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With spring approaching — it is approaching, I tell myself, despite what the weather does — I’ve stated tying regularly again, including Joe Blados’s Crease fly, some variations on Rich Murphy striped bass flies, and some Atlantic salmon flies.
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