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Fishing ReportsDecember, 2011 Well it's that time of the year again; the Rip Tide is all tucked under cover and winterized for another New England winter. So far we have been pretty lucky as it has been real mild this past fall and now in the 2nd week of Dec. it’s still in the mid 50’s, but we New Englanders know that won’t last for long. I do want to thank all of my clients for another great year of striper fishing. To all my returning and new clients I hope you had fun fishing with me and we will see you all next year the good Lord willing. If you have some spare time this winter please watch the above video and you will see why this industry needs your support. Until next spring have a safe and happy Holiday season from all of us at Rip Tide Charters. Capt. Dave September 19, 2011   If you are looking for the ultimate adrenaline rush then this is the fish for you on light tackle. If you are looking for the most frustrating fish to catch on light tackle then this is the fish for you. False Albacore produce all this and more, besides all the new ways to express yourself while fishing. Why won’t these F#@%^ *#g fish bite, why are they always out of casting range, where are the birds and on and on. Finally the perfect cast to a breaking school and Bang!, Hooked up and with in seconds he’s peeled off a hundred yds of line and the fight is on. The rod is bent to a point where or when will it break. This is what all us fisherman live for. This past few days didn’t produce the numbers we wanted to catch but the fish where there for two day’s and the third day we got blown off the pond due to the rough seas and lousy weather. Again Jeff Peters from Georgetown ME. caught these two beauties, off Hyannis on our second day. For me it was a little frustrating to say the least but I did increase my Sailors vocabulary. If you want to try this fishery give me a call. Capt. Dave Good Night Irene 
Now that "Irene" is gone and left its destructive path here in the northeast, it's time to get back to fishing. It has taken quite a few days for the seas to finally calm down. The surfers had a great time of it, but the fishing did suffer from "Irene". Now that things are getting back to normal the bait is showing up more each day and the stripers are back in there old hiding places waiting for a unsuspecting bait fish to swim by. Matt Gray hooked this nice striper feeding on bait fish in the Piscataqua River this past Saturday. The nights are getting cooler and the water temps have dropped down this past week. So bring on the fall migration because we are ready for some Striper blitzes.
July 29, 2011 What a difference a year makes, last year the Dockside Striper Tournament went thru a Micro burst that took our tent down, food scattered all over the Dockside lawn and shore line. Trees blown over lost electric power, but no injuries. This year we started off with a great evening with fabulous buffet from the Dockside, a Rum Bar and a couple of ice cold Allagash Beer kegs, followed by a great raffle and live auction items with live music from Yorks own Tom Hodston. The fishing was good for a few but not so good for others. The Open division of the catch and release tournament was won by Doug Krebs with a 45" length 23 1/4" girth, 2nd place went to Matt Webber 45" length 21 1/2" girth, both caught on live mackerel. Lady's open division was won by Suzanne McGrain 41" length 22" girth. Fly division Peter Whelan 30", Youth division Zach Vargo 41 1/2" lots of big stripers. All in all it was a great 5th Dockside Striper Tournament and our congratulations to all the winners and participants for supporting our charitable causes. Capt. Dave July 15, 2011 
Well here we are in the second week of July and for some unknown reason the fishing has slacked off a bit. We are still catching stripers but not like the month of June. I really think the full moon has a lot to do with the fishing. We have had some real bright nights and I’m sure they have been feeding pretty heavy by the light of the moon. We did get into a huge school of large Bass about 3 ½ miles off the Southern New Hampshire Coast, Henry Richie, who hails from New Zealand, caught his first striper along with his brother-in-law Matt MacLaughlin. The Bluefish are showing up along the Saco Bay Area. We haven’t caught any down along the southern Maine coast but I’m sure we will be getting into them soon. Bluefish are great fun on light tackle and flies. Well let’s hope these next couple of weeks the Stripers will be back into feeding in the early morning tides.
Capt. Dave July 2, 2011
Capt. Dave June 21, 2011 
The first official day of summer is
finally here, May was a cold rainy month but June was not too bad.
These next few weeks should bring the best fishing both inshore and
offshore. The Merrimack has still been the hot spot but the fish are
also getting pretty picky with the abundance of bait on the flats and
the mouth of the Merrimack. Small flies did the trick for John Boyd
this morning catching this nice bass. The York River has produced
some huge fish drifting live Mackerel on the out going tide at the
Stage Neck bend in the river. The Piscataqua River has been good at
times and not so good other times. The bait fish are being chased by
Mackerel and the Bass are hanging out just below the schools. Tuna
are showing up off Boone Island with some nice fish in the low 70''s
being caught and released. Hopefully the weather will be on our side
this month and fair seas. July and August is filling up fast now
that school is out , so if your thinking of doing some top notch
fishing give me a call soon.
Capt. Dave June 1, 2011   Now that summer is officially here, so are the Stripers. This past Memorial Day weekend proved to be a pretty good start to the summer season. Joe Herbert's flies fooled these two stripers and a few more this past weekend. The Merrimack is still the place to be, but good size fish are showing up in the York River and along the southern Maine coast. Good news for any of you folks that need a good motel to stay at while visiting the New Hampshire seacoast area. Our good friends at the Comfort Inn at 1190 Lafayette Rd. Portsmouth NH are giving a 20% discount to all of Rip Tide Clients that stay there. Just ask for Chris Skovron (Sales Manger) and he will take care of you. The Comfort Inn is listed on our links page. Now that you have a good place to stay lets go fishing! Capt. Dave May 24, 2011 
Just in case you haven''t noticed the stripers are back! The Merrimack River has seen some hot action the last few days, many fish in this size range up on Joppa Flats. Fly fisherman are doing well on foam poppers as well as deceiver patterns. Spin fisherman have slamming the stripers with Slug-O''s and Hogy baits. The water is still cool in the low 50's but there is plenty of bait, and that means fat stripers. I will be fishing on the Merrimack for next couple of weeks so if you want to catch some of these beauties give me a call.
Capt. Dave May 5, 2011 
Now that I got my turkey, it's time to start thinking about fishing. This tom weighed in a 21 1/2 lbs. a real beauty and provided me with one of my best hunts in years. It took 1 1/2 hrs. of calling to finally get him to come into the 50yd range for me to shoot him. A great turkey hunting day, at our camp in central Maine, and we did get to do some bass fishing as well. Caught some nice smallmouth bass, which was great considering the ice has only been out since late April.
Now all my time and effort will be in getting the Rip Tide ready to start fishing, which will be in about two weeks. Stripers are along the Rhode Island coast and Narragansett Bay and moving up this way. Bait is already starting to show up in the rivers and bays so it won't be long. I have a feeling this is going to be a great year. Capt. Dave April 1, 2011 Hey! wait just a minute this is no April Fools joke, 8" of very wet snow, you got to be kidding. Well that's how April started here along the Southern Coast of Maine. The good news is that it disappeared in a few days and it is slowly starting to warm up, no as fast as we would like it to be, but its getting there. Real signs of spring, my wife dug parsnips from her garden, real sweet and good. The woodcock are doing there mating rituals at dusk and there must be a hundred Robins looking for worms on my lawn, next the alewives will be running in the rivers and right after that the Stripers will be here. So all in all, spring is here. The new saltwater fishing regulations are in place, well sort of. The good news is, you as a client will not be required to get a saltwater license as long as you are fishing with me on the Rip Tide. I have permits for Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Last year was not the best year for Stripers but we caught bass on every trip. This year we are all hoping for a great season, again this fall I will be heading somewhere on the Cape to chase False Albacore. If you have a interest in chasing these hard tail torpedoes get in touch with me. It is a blast. The shrink wrap will be coming off the Rip Tide as soon as I shoot a Tom Turkey this early May. Thanks to Lunker City, Bill Hurley, Hogy Lures, Spro, Gamakatsu, St. Croix, Yo-Zuri and Okuma we have the best tackle available for you to use and for the fly fisherman the famous Joe Herbert flies are ready to hit the water. So let's hear from you soon to set up a trip. Capt. Dave Sept 26 2010   
Well, we are still waiting for the fall migration. It seems a lot of the stripers around the southern Maine coast have already left. We went from good to bad overnight. Hopefully the fish that headed down east this spring will stop by. There also has not been much bait as in the past years, no "Peanut Bunker", and with out bait, no fish. So what is a die heart fishermen like myself to do, go south, and that is what I did this week. Hooked on to Rip Tide and headed down to Hyannis MA. As soon as we arrived around 4:00pm the boat hit the water and we headed out to try our luck for the Hard Tails, aka False Albacore. We had a little breeze from the east that put a chop on the water but we soon got into some splashing Albies chasing bait. Jeff Peters on his first cast hooked up on one that quickly tore off a hundred yds. of line, after 15 minutes he brought it along side. I was next on my third cast and hooked up. These fish are just unbelievable; the power that they have is like trying to reel in a rocket. Next year I plan on chasing them again weather they are in Pt. Judith or the Vineyard sound, so if the stripers are gone join me down on the Cape for some reel fun.
Capt. Dave August 20 2010    This past week we had a mixed bag of fishing days some good and some a little better. We started out in Wells, where my good friend Joe Herbert and his son-in law Tom Gibson landed a few nice fish right in the harbor channel on a out going tide. The rest of the week was spent fishing the Piscataqua River. The river is still holding a lot of small bait fish which the stripers are gouging themselves on. Nick Peterson caught a nice bass on a Slug-O followed by a few smaller ones. His cousins Luke and Buck tried there hardest to keep up with him but where only able to land a few fish. We ended the week out to the Isles of Shoals where Craig Weber and his son fished with me. Craig landed this nice 33" Bass on a swimming shad jig right close to the rocks. All in all it wasn't a bad week, but we are looking for it to improve as September is just one week away. The blue fish have been spotty and most are caught by trolling deep swimming plugs. This week is going to bring in some unsettled weather but hopefully the end of the week and weekend will be great, so give me a call, and let's go Fishing!
Capt. Dave August 5 2010   I'm sure all you folks in the Northeast have suffered thru this unusual hot and humid weather, some days it was almost too hot to fish! The fish don't seem to mind the heat and humidity as you can see in the photos. Liam McNeil caught his first striper and a few more on Monday morning, and it has definitely been a morning bite these last few weeks. Coming off the full moon and the water temps a little cooler has produced some nice fish. The Piscataqua is just loaded with small river herring and mackerel. Shaun Planky from Bristol NH caught this nice 33" bass on a squid colored Slug- O just up from the 95 bridge. August is usually a great month and the bluefish are in thick around the Saco Bay area so if you want to do some great fishing give me a call. Capt. Dave July 12 2010   With temperatures hitting the 90 degree mark most of this past week you would think the stripers would be going deep, but not the case. With lots of bait in the rivers and off shore the bass have been very active and getting fatter and fatter. Sunday was a belated Fathers day trip for Gary Stevens and his son Braxton. Braxton won the prize for the biggest striper but dear old Dad caught more stripers then his son. This week looks good for the weather, we had a big swell out to the Shoals on Sunday which made it pretty tough to fish the shoreline, and hopefully the seas will calm down later this week. We have reached the half way mark for July so if you haven't booked a trip yet give me a call the summer will be over before you know it. Capt. Dave June 28 2010  What a weekend, the Dockside Striper Tournament got off to a real big Bang! Just as we started the live auction a Micro Burst roared down the York River with hail, rain and flying debris. In a matter of seconds we had eighty to one hundred mph wind roaring thru the harbor tearing down trees as if they were match sticks. Our tent was ripped from its tent pegs and tumbled down on our quests; fortunately only one brave young lady who was bartending was injured out of two hundred guests. The aftermath was quite a sight, torn trees from there roots, trees on top of cars, tables blown into the river along with a Port-a-potty and dishes all over the yard. Thanks to a great Dockside crew and other volunteers the area was back together and looking great for our awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon. The largest fish caught was a 44" 32lb striper caught on a live mackerel. My clients finished first and third in the fly fishing division, Joe Herbert took home $300.00 for the first place and his son-n-law Tom Gibson took home $100.00 for third place. We fished off of Plumb Island on Friday and Saturday, lots of bait mostly sand eels small mackerel and some big lazy stripers. The 4th of July is this week and as we all know the summer is half over, so if you want to get some fishing in give me a call.
Capt. Dave June 19 2010  It never fails when you forget the camera that's when the big fish are caught. This past week we fished the Merrimack which was very slow on Tuesday both on Joppa Flats and the mouth of the Merrimack. The water temperature on Joppa was 67 degrees. It seems the big stripers have abandoned the flats for now. I decided to head north from the mouth of the Merrimack and as luck would have it I spotted a group of birds right off the Salisbury Beach Pavilion and Joe Herbert caught stripers for three hours on the fly. Luckily Joe was able to "match the hatch" as the stripers were feeding on small silversides and he had just the fly for the job, only thing was the smaller stripers 28" range beat the bigger fish to the fly. This past Saturday we fished the Piscataqua River with some luck using "Slug-O's that I altered to look like squid. The best fish of the day where caught along the coastline from Sea Point Beach to Brave Boat Harbor. Tracy had her hands full with a few nice fish.
This weekend is the Dockside Striper Tournament which I will be fishing in the fly fishing category. Looking forward to a great tournament and all money raised will go to local food pantries. See you on the water, the summer is going by faster than I like. Capt. Dave June 8 2010   
Sorry for no fishing reports the last few days but I was hit with a virus, I feel fine but my computer has been under the weather for a while, all is well now. The Merrimack has been very spotty, lots of bait but very fussy fish and big ones at that. The wind has been a big factor especially for guys throwing flies, but Bob Signorello managed to fool a few this week as you can see from the attached photo. The Piscataqua River has also had good days and not so good days but it seems to get better each day that we fish it, especially on the in coming tides and as the tide turns to go out. There is plenty of small river herring for the stripers to feed on. Two very good buddies fish yesterday with me and did very well, the largest striper being 33" followed by several in the mid twenties and a lot of misses. Pat Breen DVM and his long time friend Bob Physer had a great time catching and releasing fish in the Piscataqua. Everyday the fishing gets better so if your planning a trip, make sure you contact me so we can get out on the water.
Capt. Dave May 26 2010 At last the stripers are back along the Southern Maine and New Hampshire coast. The bait started coming in a couple of weeks ago with the alewives heading right up stream to spawn and the stripers right behind them. The Merrimack was alive with stripers last week with a lot of fish in the low 30s being caught. Yesterday there was a good striper blitz at the mouth of the Piscataqua, so get ready for some good action as June is the best month to catch big fish on light tackle or live mackerel. We will be fishing Joppa Flats later this week and for the next few weeks. Get ready it that time of the year we have all been waiting for. Capt. Dave April 6, 2010 How early is early, well this just might be the year that beats them all. We are enjoying a very, very early warm spring this year as you all well know. The ice out in Maine fresh water lakes has been from two to three weeks earlier then anyone in these parts can remember and the ocean water temperature is already at 48 degrees. The stripers are on the move! Reports from New York, New Jersey and the Connecticut coast have stripers already. If the water temperature goes up another 10 degrees we will be fishing in late April for stripers. Lets hope this is a great year. According to the scientists from NOAA this 2003 class year is suppose to be the best since the 1998 class which we saw in 2003. The turkey season is next month, after that the Rip Tide will be in the water fishing for another season. Get your bookings in early this year. We will also be setting up a Pay-Pal account for those who wish to pay on line with a credit card. Hope to see you all again and tell your friends about us. Capt. Dave |  |
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