Maine Striper Fishing 2012

207-671-4330 call to order..

Blitz $49.95

From Casco Bay to The Outer Banks, they shot photographs, burned video footage, and interviewed an eclectic cast of anglers, guides, merchants, and fly tiers. They filled rent cars with sand, they fought ill-mannered dogs in cheap motels, and they boosted convenience store profits in nine different states.

Departure Publishing is proud to present The Blitz, Fly Fishing the Atlantic Migration. Through McDonald’s turn of phrase, and Brown’s eye for imagery, they have created an engaging and comprehensive view of the beaches, tidal rips, birds, bait, and gamefish of the Eastern Seaboard. This is not a how-to-where-to guidebook; it’s an offbeat celebration of the unique and vibrant fly-fishing culture of striped bass, bluefish, tuna, bonito, false albacore, redfish, and other nearshore pelagics.

Reviews of Blitz
The fishermen profiled here are fascinating, and if you fly fish the Northeast salt, you’ll love this book. Given all the great photos, this would make a nice coffee-table book, assuming that you have a coffee table. Something tells me that many of the anglers profiled in the book may not have one; in that case, a tying bench will do. – MidCurrent


Connect by Confluence films

CONNECT introduces a number of new locations, exotic species, and compelling characters that epitomize and exemplify the sport of fly fishing. Shot on location in Japan, Yellowstone National Park, the Yukon Drainage of Alaska, the flats of Cuba, the coast of Maine, and in the wilds of Tanzania, Africa, this feature-length movie will once again transport viewers around the world in search of new waters and exhilarating travel experiences. CONNECT features well-known anglers Greg Vincent, Jeff Currier, Jimmy Bartschi, Craig Mathews, Masa Katsumata, Brian Porter, and Captain Eric Wallace, more than a dozen different fish species, both freshwater and saltwater.
As with DRIFT and RISE before, the cinematography, sound, and feel of CONNECT come together in a visual masterpiece that promises to re-set the bar for fly fishing films.

Hat and T-shirts with the Coastal Fly Angler Logo...Price 12.00-20.00 call in your order 207-671-4330.

Maine Striper Fishing

Photo. From the new movie by Confluence Films called "Connect" by Jim Klug and Chris Patterson of confluence films-- Join Fly Fishing in Maine and CCA Maine for a advanced fundraising showing on Oct 28 at the Frontier Cafe and Theater in Brunswick Maine, all proceeds will be split between Stripers Forever Myco Research Project and Alewife population project here in Maine. For more info see www.flyfishinginmaine.com



Mid - Late October fishing report <)))<
October has brought a mixed bag of weather and fishing,I have seen the best surface action in years and also some down right great sight fishing in near record heat and a 8 lb bluefish after scraping ice from the poling platform and casting deck, there has been some windy days and some glassy evening sessions. After all its mid October now in the northern range and what fish you find day to day- enjoy- the colors on the island are beautiful and you pretty much have the water to yourself I did 6 guide trips in a row without seeing a single angler at any point during the trip, just how I like it!!! Overall you have to be on there spot they are no longer spread out and are in full on schooled up mode and on the move, the fish we found sight fishing where ultra skittish and swimming very tight head to tail, dark backed and when they decided to eat the group would jump in on it as a team effort- aka mini blitz,  there is plenty of bait and water temps are reasonable  to keep fish around but as we all know our population up here is not that big and when they feel it time to leave our
season becomes day to day and thats where we are at.. enjoy the search!!!

Maine Striper Fishing Reports

9-20-11
We got this nice fish off a draining Mud flat in Casco Bay this morning on a windy flat the fish was sitting in about 2 ft of water:) there are lots of fish around and they seem to be getting snappier by the day!!!! The big bass on the outer island sand are still doing there thing lots of sand sand eels as-well spike macs and 8-10 inch pollack around who are all on the striper menu at this point, inner islands and mud flats have just food drifting everywhere from small dropouts to peanuts and even a few big schools of pogies left around that did not get netted up yet,,,One thing that is very different from this time the past few years is there are fish still really spread out allowing us to contuine to fish the flats the why we like by ourselves,With these warmer humid nights the water temps has been really stable should contuine to see some pretty darn good fishing for three more weeks maybe longer? Bottom line get on the water as much as you can right now if you hit it when they are snappy you are in for some outstanding fishing.......

Maine Striper Fishing Mid Sept 2011

Capt Justin Rea

The first cloudy night during this big bright moon offered a little better fishing here on the flats of Casco Bay also having one of the top FL keys guides on the bow doesn't  hurt one bit. Capt Justin Rea who just came away with two of the biggest wins a fly guide can the RedBone S-Fly and the Del Brown, we found some feeding fishing in some skinny water in fog and it held up until we where kicked off the water due to a lighting storm that came pushing thru, and that was a good thing I don't know what was foggier the weather or us from a little over done evening..Today was a blow out and a time to catch up..Looking forward not sure what this cold front will do to the fishing but my experience is it can shut it down for a tide or two, but we do have a few degrees of water temp to work with, also plenty of bait and with the fading bright moon we should see some good fishing again real soon, if not by Sunday we will start to see those night lows coming back up next week and should help.I will say this at about 1.5 on the tide change yesterday we had a ton of  fish around us so they are total schooled up now is some areas and feeding as a group ton of fun to see and it helped us get our heads out of the fog..    

Maine Striper Fishing Reports

The feeling of fall hit me on my bald head this AM running out, wishing I had a knit beanie on instead of a baseball cap, but like yesterday the cool morning made for some pretty hot fishing between the last two trips we have boated nearly 30 fish, these are all coming on a incoming tides in some pretty skinny water, the fish are feeding and staying near the small dropouts and the peanut bunker that is spread out into a few pockets in Casco Bay for about 2 week now!!! mixed in are some nice size blue fish and a good but wish was it was better population of smaller striped bass, good to see!!!! I also wonder if the influx small stripers are native Kennebec fish pushed out due to poor water quality from last weeks storm and inland rains??? In both cases over the past two-days our window has been kinda short but very active and very willing fish if you don't put them down, Fly wise we have been able the last few days to get away without really matching the size of the bait or profile for that matter and just a hollow pattern in the 4-6 inch range has worked very well,with the set up of tides and bright moon the next few nights they might  become a little more picky and more dialed into shape and profile?although I don't offer Bait fishing trips, but the 8 year old kid next door boated a 39 and 44 on live bait today with a little inside info on a outer island beach that is holding a very large amount of big fish right now!!! It was fun to see him run over with his photos and how excited he was to tell me he released them both!!!! a few high fives and a promise to teach him to fly cast this fall we have the next generation angler on our hands!!
 
On the fly our best this week was 36 inch fat and spitting up peanut bunker boat side, lots of 20-30 inch fish and a few fish near 16, 

I truly feel our best fishing of the year is still ahead of us and water temps and bait are all on our side, the only real slow period we have had came with very bouncy winds changing direction and flow daily, combined with the normal lull as fish start to school up and are more worried about being social than feeding I think we are both going into a bit more stable weather pattern and the fish are already showing sighs of feeding as a group... and as always you can not catch them unless your on the water, enjoy the search.....  

Maine Striper Fishing

Fly Fishing in Maine

Maine Striper Fishing Reports

Joe Herbert with a nice striped bass, caught on the mud flats of Casco Bay Late August, 2011 in less than 2 ft of water!!!!

Another comes to a small crab pattern, sight fishing the sand flats !!!!

Maine Striper Fishing

Well the skinny water fishing in Casco Bay has remained strong all season long!!! even through the hottest  weather we had fish in the shallows eating flies!!! we also boated a few large fish in the shallows on sluggos, Fishing the tide has trumped  chasing the low light and has turned some bright sunny days into darn right outstanding sight fishing!!!!! with that said there are times the fish are much snappier than than others and experienced flats anglers have been able to just make them eat, while others struggle, olive colored hollow style patterns with very little flash crabs,crabs,crabs have be working for us very well for awhile now, even with a ton of fin bait around a quite boat and a well fished crab get eats!!! some small sand eel patterns and for the spin caster in the shallows soft plastics white  sluggos and olive over gray seemed to be working well match it up to low light to bright light..Water temps are pretty warm for maine but compared to 76 down on the Cape Cod you understand why we contuine to see more and more fresh fish in Casco Bay area or could it be something we have not seen for years??? Penut bunker !!! yes a little early but we will take it they are spread out in a particular area in the bay and came in after a few days of hard southwest winds last week. Hope like hell more come and bring more and more fish setting us up for some great fall fishing, August should continue to fish pretty good everyone for the most part is finding fish and enjoying one of the better striper fishing season in Maine in years!! I have 2 or 3 open dates for august as of today so if you are interested in getting on the flats for stripers here in Maine either Casco Bay or the sand flats south of Portland give a call also remember the tidal carp fishing is still holding up well again tides and weather patterns are key to get them in the shallows...

I want to say congratulation to my buddy Capt Justin Rea for winning his second Del Brown Permit Tournament, for all you who have taken on the ultimate challenge of lower keys permit fishing on the flats with a fly you understand the angling and guiding level involved!!! Justin has a video out called Black Tail Devils I have copies for sale so let me know and we can get you set up..

Other cool stuff is the new book by Tosh Brown and Pete McDonald call the Blitz over two hundred pages of arguably the best photos to bring to life our passion for these fish. The blitz start here in Casco Bay and works it way to Cape lookout with essay on guides and just plane fishy people, I gave my wife a copy she thumb threw it and said WOW now I understand!!
Buy a copy leave it on the coffee table I am sure it will buy you some water time with a new understanding for your passion...   

Maine Striper Fishing Reports

Well don't need to explain the weather to any of you, it's hot and the water temps on the mud flats near the river where 74 this morning at 4 AM, sure you can find cooler water and fish on the outer islands and the sand flats have not been to bad on the incoming tide, but a big majority of the larger bait is near the rivers and larger coves and flats. This amount of bait has kept the interest of the bass and we are finding them in some pretty warm water. The bite has a pretty short window, either first light or the first hour or so of the tide change. We broke a fish of yesterday morning that ate my anglers fly is some pretty skinny water that was in that 35-40 inch range and next fish was a bright sea lice cover 14inch striper so mixed bag of sizes, fish seem to be pretty spread-out just not always feeding heavy and if you miss the short window you may think it a dead sea out there..Blue fish have showed there toothy self throughout the Casco Bay area so have some wire with you plenty of little mackerel around. Some areas really took in a lot of floating eel grass after the stronger afternoon sw winds the past few days making some of the area with cooler water holding some active fish pretty tough to get any clean retrieve's, Today my angler came down from his house on the Kennebec for a change of pace and a little skinny water fishing, he was on a pretty long drought getting a striper to eat his fly on the big river and was sick of his kids heckling him for out fishing him with live bait. Having the bow to himself he was treated to a unreal amount of fish high in the water showing themselves but also showing us there tail-using it as there middle finger!!! we where able to move a few and hit a quick photos for his kids.... Release un Quickly this warm water is not easy on them!!!!!

Maine Striper Fishing Reports

With the amount of fish around we continue to have some fun days on the flats with the fly!!! There is plenty of bait around maybe too much but that most likely will change with the BlueFish  that have also keyed into it in parts of the bay, The past three days have had a weird timing  but have also produced some snappy action in skinny water in the bright sun... Overall I am seeing a lot fish grouped up as if a early June migration most likely water temps and food have pushed another layer of fish into our waters We often see this in Late July and August on the outer islands of Casco Bay during long periods of heat to the south, this make for some great dark fresh targets on the sand flats, and this week I had an angler who just hit it right, snappy fish good sky and good enough tide to give some shots and boy did he take advantage of it!! going 13 fish on probably 20 or so cast the fish where on our crab but also the angler had a hell of a skill set and after getting to know a little history I learned he got his 83rd Permit in the keys this past April and when I asked who he fished with down there, it answered a lot of questions he has fished with who most guides feel is the best salt guide for over 25 years, I enjoyed my day and learned a ton, we spent hours discussing crab patterns how they drop to leaders used in currents with crabs that might throw of the drop to casting angles and it also reminded me some anglers can just read fish and the eats better than most...but also smart angling is not just pounding the water!!!!!          

Maine Striper Fishing with Capt. Eric Wallace

Stripers on Crab Patterns,Tidal Ravine Carp in less then a foot of water and a Big Blue Fish on a Casco Bay mud flat, A NEW KIND OF SKINNY WATER SLAM. With a few hrs between tides of Casco Bay and Merrymeeting under 20 minute car ride we can target a goofy slam without missing out on the best tides for the other speices....