Greetings from Capt. Dave & BAYMEN!

I have caught my last striped bass of the season several times now. Today, the weather looked way too nice with temps in the 70’s, a slight overcast, and no wind! Perfect to get back on the bay and search for late season fish!

At first light, a rising tide and water temps 56-59 degrees. I had good intel on some big fish working a school of pogies and ran the bay in search of them… They were not there. I did find a school of about a dozen small fish and made a few half-hearted casts before running back into the bay. Today, I wanted to find the mother load of striped bass. Acres of topwater was what was on my mind…

I ran into Kingston, Plymouth, Duxbury, and debated running up and down the coast outside but thought better of it and concentrated my efforts inside the bay on the rising tide. I found four small schools of fish. Two of the schools ignored my offerings. One of the schools had a bass obviously feeling charitable, and it slammed my Baymen Universal on a 9wt Maine Fly Co, Penobscot rod. I like this rod a lot. Line was a 300 grain ORVIS. Well, it felt just great to have a hard fighting fish on the end of my line. I landed him, took his picture, and released him.

Next, after finding no more fish out in the bay, I ran up the Bluefish River. Lovely up there in October on a full tide. I saw one bass rise, set a drift, and WHAM! Caught him, a small schoolie that hit a Mike Rice Peanut Bunker fly.

And that was the total for my morning of 3 1/2 hours searching the bay for the mother load. I am sure I will get e-mails and PM telling me I should have gone here or there because the fish were stacked liked cordwood with keepers. I honestly hope I do get those e-mails because I truly enjoy them and like to see how I stacked up with other anglers during my morning on the water.

So, TODAY is my last day on the bay… I am done for the season…. It has been a great season and BAYMEN clients landed a ton of fish (over two-thousand fish) with our share of keepers on light tackle and on the fly. A cold front is suppose to arrive in a few days and temps are going to drop. Could there be another school of fish coming through the bay in November…? December…? Yes. There will be. If you are in the right place at the right time, on the right tide on the right day, there will be a big school of very late fish passing through our bay. And I hope to see you out there. But do me a favor: shoot me an e-mail – I will probably be in the wrong spot.

Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, www.baymenlife.com 31 years Guiding The Bay. Done For The Season…?

Soli Deo Gloria!