Reel Dream Charter's Weblog

Spring Striped Bass Run has Begun!

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Wed, 25 May 2011 16:58:44 +0000

As of last week, a big surge of stripers have entered the harbor. Depending on tides and weather, these fish are feeding in the morning and afternoon. The bait is mainly herring, mackerel, and small silversides. The fish are strong and healthy and averaging 28+ inches!
Now is definitely the time to book your next fishing trip!

Tight lines,

Capt. Wayne

waiting for spring…

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:05:49 +0000

If you love to fish in the salt, be it fly or light tackle, and live in the Northeast, it won’t be long before you catch your first striper of the 2011 season. After a fantastic spring and summer of 2010 we’re all getting geared up for another great season on the water. Soon I will begin my late winter ritual of tying flies, ordering new lures, replacing old fly and spinning lines, cleaning up my reels (yeah, I “forgot” to do all my reels after last season), and getting all my stuff in order.
This season, my Kids’ Fishing Program will focus on conservation and catch & release. Whereas, I will permit the kids to take a keeper or two during the week they fish with me, we are all going to participate in a fish tagging program. This should be fun and interesting for all on board and a good feeling knowing that we will be contributing some valuable information to help conserve the striped bass fishery. I’m also excited about guiding anglers new to the sport or the area, teaching more novices about the joys of fly fishing, and taking out those anglers who have fished with me in the past and have become friends over the years. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to fish and guide others around the beautiful and historic waters in Boston Harbor and beyond.

Peace,

Capt. Wayne

end of summer wrap up…

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:13:48 +0000

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted… I was fortunate to spend most days on the water given the incredibly beautiful weather and excellent fishing this summer. In fact, we experienced some of the best fishing and weather we’ve had in years. The bait was plentiful… for live-liners, the mackerel and herring were abundant. The macks stayed longer than usual. More recently, we’ve seen clouds of tinker mackerel, along with smaller herring, and silversides. On most days this season, flocks of working birds in the morning (and occasionally in the afternoon and early evening) and stripers busting the surface voraciously feeding on bait were the norm. And there were schools of big bluefish in the deep water to add a little variety from time to time.

Last week, although we were still seeing schools of tinker mackerel, the fishing slowed down. The storm that passed through at the beginning of the week didn’t help matters and fishing was slow again this morning. Nonetheless, I’m very optimistic about the fall fishing given the numbers of bass and blues we have seen this summer and the amount of bait fish in the harbor. Perhaps, the best is yet to come?

Tight lines,

Capt. Wayne

Images of Reel Dream Charters fishing trips and kid’s fishing program…

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:59:22 +0000

Click to view slideshow.Click to view slideshow.

So… where are all the small striped bass?

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:51:53 +0000

This is a question many of my guide friends have been asking for the past couple of years. The fishing in the Boston Harbor area has been excellent this season. Many keeper size bass (over 28″) including some very large fish in the 20 – 30+ pound range are being caught and released, and in some cases kept for the grill. Today, the average striped bass that we see in our waters is typically from 24 to 30″. However, we are not seeing the small or juvenile bass that were common place in the 90′s and early 2000′s. The concern is that this may reflect depleted or smaller young of the year stocks of striped bass and if so, it does not bode well for the future of recreational striper fishing. And if recreational and commercial striper fisherman continue to take the larger breeder fish, we could be dealing with a double whammy! Now, I’m not a scientist. I’m just reporting on my observations as a fishing guide who has fished Boston Harbor and Mass. Bay waters for many years.

So, what do you think? Any guess as to why we are not seeing smaller bass? Should we be concerned???

Capt. Wayne

musings…

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:24:27 +0000

The fishing in the harbor over the past week or so has been as good as it gets. The schools of stripers are large and the bait fish are plentiful. The bass are feeding on herring, silversides, and I hear pogies, as well. However, a cold front moved through last night and as such the fishing today (so I’m told) was less than satisfactory.

This is always a “hard” time of year for me as I work full-time at a high school ~ until school lets out on June 21. So, like many of you who work full-time to eke out a living, I am relegated to fishing weekends and the occasional late afternoons during the week. It’s difficult to turn away or refer on charters and although I’m always happy to hear a great mid-week fishing report, I kind of wish it was me who was the primary source of the report! Still, I am grateful for the time I do have during the summer to pursue my avocation and introduce others to the sport of light tackle fishing and fly fishing in salt waters. Recently, I had the pleasure of taking my girlfriend Robin and her son Jake fishing. Both Robbie and Jake were so excited to catch their first striped bass! I am truly blessed to be in a relationship with a woman who absolutely enjoys being out on the water. Truth be told, it wouldn’t matter to me if she had no interest at all in fishing or boating. That she does is just a bonus .

Until next time,

Capt. Wayne

Fishing and weather…

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:03:05 +0000

There are plenty of fish in the harbor now including some decent keepers in the 30+” range. However, the weather fronts and the fog have been a bit of a problem, as of late. But hey, that’s fishing… Plenty of mackerel on the outside and guys into live-lining are having success. The weather bodes well for the upcoming holiday weekend, although we’re looking at another cold front this Wednesday. So, once things settle after the front, the fishing should be awesome!
Tight lines,

Capt. Wayne

Striped Bass Conservation

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:10:27 +0000

“Stripers Forever members – as you may have heard, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has voted by a 9 to 6 margin to send to public hearings certain options to increase the commercial quota for striped bass. We think it is very likely that this ill conceived idea will be defeated, but, taking nothing for granted, Stripers Forever will provide you with the information that you will need to contact your ASMFC representatives and the legislators to whom they report in order to fight this attempted commercial increase.
Take heart! Thanks to our campaign last month, individual federal officials received over 300 e-mails asking for the National Marine Fishery Service representative to the ASMFC to vote against further commercialization of the striped bass fishery. The NMFS voted against the commercial increase. Your efforts were the reason.
In the ASMFC press release they state that the justification for the commercial increase is that since 2004 the recreational harvest has increased by 13.7%, while the commercial harvest has decreased 3.7%. Let us expose below just how these statistics have been twisted in an attempt to support more commercial killing of striped bass.
The commercial harvest has not decreased at all from 04 to 08. The quota has remained the same every year during this period. If a state exceeds its quota one year, it is reduced by the same amount the following year; in some years various states haven’t reported catching their full quota, but the quota itself hasn’t changed. Not catching your quota is certainly not justification for requesting an increase. In addition, an over harvest one year, requiring a reduced quota the following year doesn’t mean that your harvest dropped. What’s more, everyone at the ASMFC knows that these quotas are being exceeded each year due to large unreported, (read illegal) catches. This is no secret, just look in the news! There is no recognition or estimate of this illegal catch because many of the members of the ASMFC are commercial fishing ideologues who won’t acknowledge this activity, even though they know very well that it goes on all the time.
The recreational catch harvest has not increased by 13.7%, rather it has fallen from 27.4 million pounds in 2004 to 25.7 million pounds (a decrease of 6%) in 2008, and it continued to shrink to 21.5 million pounds (a decrease of 21.5%) in 2009. The 2009 numbers are available, why weren’t they used? We have asked the ASFMC to include these 2009 numbers. They acknowledge there will be some corrections in the final document.
Worst of all, we think is using pounds of harvest as the measure to justify a commercial quota increase. The actual number of striped bass caught – harvested and released – by the recreational community has dropped from 20 million fish to 9.8 million (a drop of 51%) from 2004 to 2009. This is the real story and the infallible indicator of the deterioration of this fishery. The much greater socio-economic value (10.3 times as much per pound) found in the recreational fishery is derived from money spent catching fish. Fewer fish mean less effort and less economic activity. While the ASMFC is splitting some hairs to get a few more stripers killed, the far more valuable sector of the fishery is being severely damaged because of the rapid degradation of the striper population caused, caused large part, by the commercial harvest.
To see the real changes in this fishery over the last few years, follow this LINK to our website and see the charts and graphs detailing the total numbers of fish being killed by the recreational and commercial fisheries. If you have been barraged by the hogwash about how the recreational fishery is really the culprit, and how the commercial fishery’s toll on the population is inconsequential, you’ll get quite a surprise. We are now on the verge of having the striped bass fishery becoming more or less a split between a few thousand largely part-time commercial fishermen and over 3,000,000 members of the public (and the many times greater economic activity they support.)

Let’s not get mad, though, let’s get even. We need to change things, and together we can. Support the striped bass game fish movement and get everyone you know who fishes to join in. Ending the influences of commercial harvesting is the only way that we will ever return to the great striped bass fishing that we had just a few years ago. We’ll contact you soon to start e-mailing the legislators and fishery managers who run the ASMFC and together we’ll beat back this latest attempt to further rape the striped bass fishery.”

Let the games begin!

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:31:51 +0000

Despite the inclement weather on Saturday, the bass were in the harbor in very good numbers and feeding on large herring. No particular fly worked better than another. The main thing was to mark a school of fish, or look for working birds, and get your fly in the strike zone. These fish were mainly schoolies in the 24 – 27″ range with some larger keeper bass in the mix.

Tight lines,

Capt. Wayne

Good News!

Capt. Wayne Frieden — Mon, 03 May 2010 10:56:10 +0000

I went down to the marina with Robin yesterday to spend a few hours on the water in the afternoon and do a little scouting. The tide was too high and the wind was brisk but it was great to be on the water. Bumped into a guide friend who was just leaving. He had been out in the morning to catch the incoming tide and and found fresh stripers which were caught and released. So, it was good to have a confirmation that the bass have arrived in Boston and this bodes extremely well for my charter this coming weekend!

Tight lines,

Wayne