Port Clyde area

[Joseph C.]

I'll be staying up near Port Clyde next week and would appreciate any ideas you might offer for catching something. I would be happy with just about anything, but maybe striper are about. It might be early for blues.

I will be bringing along a plugging rod, a surf stick, and a freshwater spinning rod.

Are there mackerel around?

[Joseph C.]

OK, I didn't get much help from the board, but it worked out OK anyway.

I saw lots of fishing from public docks and boat launches, but, aside from Mackeral, not much catching. I tried using cut bait from the S. Thomaston boat launch one evening along with 3 other guys, but nobody got so much as a hit. Lots of green crabs, though, and I caught my first ever lobster.

One night - Monday? - as I was about to turn in for the night, I went out on our back deck, which is about 60 feet from the hide tide water line, and as I was taking in the night air I heard a sound like somebody on the cove chucking bricks in the water. After a few repetitions I realized it was stripers smacking and sucking up bait fish along the grass banks. I haven't heard that since my summers on Cape Cod back in the 70's. Sh*t!

I got my plugging rod and tied on a bucktail with a teaser, and in the pitch dark (cloudy and no moon) I went out to the grass line just down the path from our deck. The water was glassy smooth and fish were all around the cove including within casting distance of my position. About 10 casts into the effort I hooked up with a nice fish and landed it after an spirited fight.
25.9 "

I kept it for dinner the next evening, and its stomach was full to bursting with small bait fish - sardines, alewives, or something else - not my familiar sort of little fish.

What with wind and tide shifting, I wasn't able to repeat my feat of catching a lovely fish so close to my back deck, but I did try twice more and again heard the smack and slosh of the big stripers echo around the cove.

I recommend that anyone who's up there and wants to catch a respectable fish try to get out in the evening and darkness to catch the high tide. A bucktail worked fine for me, but I'd guess a small popper would work, being quieter and good for close quarter casting. Best to scope out terrain and rocks / seaweed beds and such at low tide before you go out, though.

Cheers all!