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Date: July 25, 2020 Body of Water: Casco Bay - Falmouth Foreside, Maine Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous; New plus five days Tides: Just about Low at first, rising throughout and ending at just about High Tide Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone Target: Striped Bass Time: 10 AM - 3:30 PM Conditions: Sunny and hot (upper 80's) with faint haze and mild southerly breeze. Water ranged from 63 degrees F (incoming tide at Portland Head Light) to 66 degrees (Hussey Sound) to 70 degrees at The Landing in the Bay's interior With the truck full of gas, I figured I could pull off a properly Social-Distanced day trip to my skiff on Casco Bay. I launched at the public ramp at Portland's Eastern Promenade at just about dead low tide; without any problems. Despite the day's promise for heat, there was a parking spot waiting for me, too! With the heat, sunshine, low tide, warm water and late start all conspiring against my success, I decide to simply persevere, explore and take what the day gave me. It gave me plenty! I poked around Pomroy Rock. This appeared to be an extreme, negative tide, and I could see how this humble rock could continue to produce a surprising number of fish. It's a bit more complex than I'd realized, and it drops off into pretty deep water to the east. I tried a few casts with a new Hogy Dog Walker before moving on to new water. Next up was Fort Gorges; I'd always avoided this area due to underwater hazards. Low tide and good GPS mapping revealed plenty of good-looking water, but I chose to keep moving. The western side of Little Diamond Island revealed some other potentially good water. I also spotted the first striper of the day, a very nice fish that chased, but did not eat, a new Hogy Slider Plug in Bunker coloration. By now, the incoming tide was starting to flow, and so I headed out to the channel markers by Portland Head Lighthouse. Trolling for mackerel with the Sabiki, I almost instantly hooked up by Bell Buoy 12. A single, snack-sized mackerel entered my livewell. A second quickly joined it, but that was it for a bit. I chose to re-locate to Hussey Sound for a potentially better mackerel bite. Given the flat seas, I took the Outside Route along Cushing and Peaks Islands. This was shorter, saved time, and let me come across a pod of porpoises! I quickly trolled up another pair of macks, but the promising start was tempered by my inability to put them into the livewell. Both flipped off before I could capture them. It took another half hour to get a third mack into the well; this was not good! Just before 1 PM at about mid-tide, I made my first cast of the day with a mackerel. I had selected a white-washed hole adjacent to the bank of Vaill Island. The tinker was seemingly instantly intercepted by a bass; a fine 26-incher! I ran through my remaining two mackerel pretty quickly; each got clobbered, visibly chased and harassed until dead, but neither was eaten, and I didn't have a chance to hook up with any of these bass. I even chunked my last, dead victim, but this didn't elicit any positive behavior. I ran back to Hussey and got a couple of additional baits; I had similar results along the steep rocky banks of Scussett Island. I tried a popper along this scoured shore, but no bass responded to my artificial offerings. With time starting to run out, I secured my final mack of the day and went to Prince Point off Waite's Landing, hoping to have a chance to repeat the high-tide success I'd had during my last visit. I set this rather large mackerel under a float to keep it out of the grass in about 16 feet of water, and let it swim about 25 yards behind the boat as I drifted toward the underwater bar. I casted poppers and soft stick-baits from the bow, while the active mackerel trailed behind, the bait-runner combo set in a rod holder. Soon enough, line was audibly racing off the reel. I wound down while the rod was still in the holder, and the rod loaded nicely as the circle hook found its spot! My biggest striper of the year (so far) at 27 inches fought well! Nothing else responded to my lures, and since I was out of baitfish, I tried another drift with a floating sandworm. But nothing developed and at 3:30 PM, hot and tired, I was getting off the water. What do I have to say about this? I didn't capture my Striper Cup Limit of three photographed stripers, but I still had a (better than) good day! Had I been able to make more bait, I suspect I could have been on biting bass all day. I explored a couple of new, potentially good spots and re-visited a couple of faithful, old friends. I moved a fish on a new lure, and didn't have any problems. It really was a better-than-good day! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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