By The schoolies are still so thick in Boston Harbor right now that you can pretty much walk across them. If you find the birds you’ll find the schoolies – but don’t bother chasing them! Cast anywhere within a couple hundred yards of the birds and you’ll be on the schoolies. The bigger fish are in and moping around, but so far we haven’t seen any good size on the birds or on the schools of pogies. Sunrise and sunset, the big girls are feeding though on topwater in the shallows! Mackerel are still easy to find out by the ledges and pogies are inside Boston, Hingham, Winthrop, and Quincy in pretty good numbers. Nothing like the peak of last year, but thick enough to snag a couple.
The ticket for schoolies has still been anything all white and around 4″ long. the Hogy Paddle Pro Tail Paddles in 4.25″ in UV Bone have been unstoppable. It has become a common theme to show up to the birds and triple hook up over and over again on them. The Rebel Jumpin Minnow, Luhr Jensen Crippled Herring, and the Z-Man SwimmerZs have been on fire for the schoolies as well as long as they’re all white and around 4″ long. On the fly 4-6″ all white deceivers have been the key.
Fishing was tough this week with the heavy northeast winds most of the week. I think only Wednesday and Saturday did we get a slight break from the wind for a while, but those didn’t last long. Mackerel are still easy to find off the ledges and we were able to find pogies thick enough to snag a couple. Sunrise and Sunset have been best with live Mackerel being the key for larger bass. Bunch of chases and short strikes on the pogies though so far as they’re harassed by the schoolies. Wednesday saw a lot of action with almost a dozen 27″ fish on live mackerel and a couple smaller on black pearl Hogy soft plastics both with jig heads and swimbait hooks. Nothing larger and nothing smaller that day – it was almost a joke! The biggest bass of the week was a 32″ on a Doc topwater in the heavy wind. We got another large blow up on a Polaris Popper but regretfully missed it.
Tight Lines,
-Captain Nick