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Saw two boats on the merrimac in haverhill with guys fishing yesterday afternoon. Hope they had a good day.
When I lived in Lowell, I put most of my yearly driving miles on my YJ just driving to that spot every Friday and many Saturdays (lived 2 miles from the office vs 50 miles one way to PI). Loved it. So peaceful.Been doing well last 3 days on the plum island side of the merrimack on the schoolies - been hitting it a few hours before low and they're hitting well on plastics up until about an hour before dead low. Got 8 today.
I haven't even touched any of my fishing gear since last August. If I have any free time at all lately, it's spent shooting/ competitions. I need to actually schedule myself some fishing time though.
I live so close to the canal too, and I'm just not knowledgeable enough about fishing the ditch to make it worth my time to go there. I went as far as to have braid put on one of my reels, but I got f*cking rats nests on almost every cast last season at the canal, I just gave up and just went with what I know. For the most part I fish the bay side from Barnstable Harbor to Quivett Neck. I have a sand eel rake and if the timing is right, I can rake my own bait and throw it out on a double-hook rig on the same day and catch some pretty decent stripers.
Once my babies are older I hope to start taking them fishing!
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Anyway - point being, braid has it's advantages but so does mono/flouro, it's good to consider them when rigging up, braid isn't always better.
Yeah you definitely fish way more often than I do.
Would you suggest a certain weight of mono if I were to head back to the canal to try again? 50lb test seems like a lot for my old Penn 710, but it seems I wouldn't want anything lighter if I'm gonna hook onto a big canal striper, no?
Stripers dont live in there but its not so dirty anymore either.. not that I eat much of that, generally I let them go, give them away, or during commercial season sell them.Are these keepers, eaters? Mercury content of older larger fish? Plum island sewage disposal area fish? Lowell and Merrimack water, yuk yuk.
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I was here yesterday starting at 5:30a, early action was quiet with a few guys getting schoolies on plugs. The mackerel started showing up around 10a and the fishing picked right up! Several 30"+ stripers were taken over the next couple hours until the tide rose and the mackerel disappeared. I think over the next couple weeks a lot of bigger fish will come in. Good luck to all!
Stripers........I thought it said strippers. Never mind.
OK, school me on this. You want the tide LOW at Scusset and coming in to catch stuff, right??? Night better than day. Full/new moon versus any other.
I only ask b/c my kids are coming in for FOJ and I've got, like, a 2-day window to take my son fishing on teh canal. We hit the other side last year and not much luck by anyone. Just those few HUGE ones. Caught as the tide was dropping, not rising. I thought maybe Scusset would be better, assuming we can even get in there. I assume that weekend overall is gonna be HELLA busy.
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