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Date: June 10, 2023 Body of Water: Casco Bay - Falmouth and Cumberland, Maine Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone Target: Striped Bass Time: 9:30 AM - 2 PM Moon Phase: Third Quarter/waning crescent moon Tide: Low at about 11 AM Conditions: Mixed sun and clouds with a few sprinkles and one heavy shower, light winds but mostly from the north; 55 - 60 degrees. Water temperatures 53 (Hussey Sound) - 60 degrees (Broad Cove) and in-between everywhere else. Tired but expecting a guest the next day, I decided to start late and spend the day scouting, while verifying Broad Cove conditions at low tide for any potential fly-fishing opportunity. There was a lot of boat work to do, too, but by 9:30 or so, I was heading east of Clapboard to look for the season's first mackerel. I didn't find any there, but I moved over, closer to Basket. A couple of dolphins and a seal joined me here, so I had some confidence in finding bait here. I did stumble into a deep school of something on the sonar, and when I hovered the Sabiki just above the "blob", I scored a quick double-brace of baits! But that was it here and so I re-located to Broad Cove to check the bottom of the tide. Birds were active at the very top of the Cove; perhaps over mud, maybe over water, but not navigable, regardless. Nothing else showed in previously productive areas. Still, I worked the "gut" with a slow-trolled mack. Moving in, I had quite a few contacts with bass; a couple of runs ending with turned hooks, a long campaign of harassment, and an aggressive "pluck" from the hook. I was down to my last bait and near the terminus of my navigable water and still without a bass. I decided to re-located to Sturdivant Island and so reeled in my live bait. It got crushed boat side, and luckily, the hook found its way into a good spot. This 25-incher fought well in the shallow (< 5 feet) water, and I was glad to finally have landed a gamefish! Now, I went looking for a better bait situation and ran to Hussey Sound for the first time in 2023. Here, I invested an hour and bounced all around, only to find a single, structure-oriented mackerel. Not much else was going on here! The single bait went into the livewell and I decided to return to Basket to see if the change in tide had resulted in any change for the better. Perhaps; I deposited two more into the livewell in about 20 minutes before heading to Sturdivant a couple of hours into the flood tide. I quickly converted all three mackerel into bites, landing two more stripers measuring 24 and 28 inches. These were aggressive fish and made things seem easy. Each had come from near productive boulders in 10-14 feet of water, and my mackerel were clearly vulnerable in a couple of inside turns along my favored stretch. What do I have to say about this? It was nice to enter a new phase to the season with the installation of the livewell and the return of the mackerel. Clearly, they are not in "thick", yet, but the bass seemed to be ready for them, and I will not complain with converting every available mackerel into a striped bass contact. I took it pretty easy on myself and the boat and positioned myself well for the following day's trip. I'd have a new guest aboard, and I wanted things to go well! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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