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Date: July 10, 2021 Body of Water: Casco Bay, Falmouth, Maine Moon Phase: New Moon plus one day; waxing crescent Tides: High Tide at 12:33 PM; Low Tide at 6:14 PM Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone until 5 PM, but then joined by A Target: Striped Bass Time: 12:45 PM - 7:45 PM Conditions: Sunny, 75, South wind, day after a tropical storm with tons of rain While conditions were wonderfully comfortable for me, this was a tough bite! It took 45 minutes to collect a half dozen mackerel in 60 feet of water off Clapboard Island, and these came in singles only. Fortunately, I was able to jig some followers with successive drops of the Sabiki, or my bait-making would have been even more of a struggle. Of course, the nearby eastern end of Clapboard beckoned, and even though I had the entire day and bay in front of me, I settled into exploring this rocky area with a pair of trailing Scombrids. While the rocks and deeper water did not produce, the nearby sandy flats produced an explosive miss (I was dealing with a tangle at the time) and a few cases of harassment, where the bass were interested, the macs were scared, but the stripers just could not eat. Still after a fair amount of effort, and when I'd realized that the bite really was off, I did have a chase that resulted in the bass eating almost at my rod tip; and I caught my first Maine "keeper" striper of the year! When I was down to my last mackerel, I relocated tp the opposite/western end of Clapboard. It took a while, but finally a bass pinned my Mac to the surface and confidently engulfed it. I was surprised to find that a 22-inch bass had so efficiently eaten an approximate 9-inch mackerel. But it had! My other mackerel had been donated to bass harassment, including a couple of legitimate runs that didn't materialized into hooked fish. So while my landing numbers aren't so hot, even a two-fish session can still have a lot of positive experience behind it. A now met me at the dock with sandwiches for dinner, so we circumnavigated Clapboard to look at the seals. Dozens were beached on the ephemeral island south of Clapboard during this low tide. We managed to catch a single mackerel which we live-lined first at Clapboard's eastern end, and then off the western end. None of my usual locations produced, but as I continued along Clapboard's nothern shoreline, finally we had a run on the mac. A bass had intercepted the bait near a boulder that was contributing to a noticeable current seam, now that the tide had started rising in earnest. Unfortunately, the hook again failed to find the bass. Oh well, it was time to head in, anyway. What do I have to say about this? This was a long day with little to show for it, other than my "biggest" Maine striper in a couple/few years. Still, it was both satisfying and enjoyable. Despite my inefficiencies (finding bait and converting those baits into hooked bass), this style of fishing offers a lot of interaction and anticipation; and, the fish I'm on, while not quite the "right" ones, are larger than my typical lure and worm fish. Plus, getting to see seals and eagles with A; pretty nice! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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