Striper

The last couple of days have been cold, overcast and foggy with the occasional rain shower or stretch of drizzle. Yesterday and today I have come home from my morning striper trip and started a fire in the woodstove to feel warm. In fact on my afternoon trip yesterday I wore an insulated underwear top and was glad to have it on as the evening wore on.

Just a quick post to say that the stripers have arrived in the Saint George River in numbers. It has been a long wait for them to get here but they are a fish worth waiting for. For the last couple of days there have been acres of bait. Including an early bunch of what I call rain bait (it looks like it is raining where they are in the river because of all of the dimples on the surface) I think in reality that they are a bay anchovy.

I’ve made two scouting trips on the Saint Gorge this week and can report an amazing number of eagles, cormorants by the thousands and a few ospreys. The ravens are still in the rookery at the head of the tide and calling to each other steadily. But not one striper to the boat, I did have one half hearted bite yesterday morning but no luck on setting the hook. Water temperatures are almost warm enough (59 up river and 52 in the lower river) and should improve over these next few days with a mid day low tide and sunny skies to warm the flats.

As of today Argy and I have been married for twenty nine years. Time sure flies when you are having fun! If you had told me that day all of the adventures we would have together I would not have believed it. Two great kids, an beautiful place to live and a couple of amazing careers. What more could anyone ask?

Dear Striped Bass Fisherman – our favorite fish is struggling, and Stripers Forever, a free-membership, internet-based organization needs as many members as possible to continue the momentum gained when President Bush recently signed the Executive Order establishing game fish status for all striped bass in Federal waters - the EEZ.  Stripers Forever was an importrant part of a collaborative effort to secure this designation.

Our weather has been pretty consistent for most of this week.  An easterly wind with no rain and because the wind is off of the water chilly temperatures. The striper fishing continues to be slow because of the cold water that arrives on each incoming tide. The water temperature fell seven degrees between the harbor and my first stop to fish this morning. Hopefully the sun this afternoon with the tide out will warm the bottom and in turn the water some.

Yesterday while waiting at the Thomaston public landing for my afternoon striper fishing party I saw something that I had only seen once before. An osprey dove and successfully caught a herring. While he was flying off with his prize an eagle appeared and began to harass the osprey. For several minutes it was quite a display of aerial ability with the more maneuverable osprey seeming to be able to avoid but not escape the eagle. After repeated dives from the eagle and an equal number of successful rolls twists and dives. The osprey gave up and let go of the fish.

Several people had mentioned to me that they had seen my picture in the Northwoods Sporting Journal this month. I had no idea whether I was really in or not. I knew that I had not been interviewed but thought that maybe I had been mentioned for being involved in some outdoor issue and an old picture placed with the story. Or perhaps I had been at a hearing or meeting this winter and simply got into the background of a picture.