Young alewives’ migration makes fast striper fishing

Owing to Hurricane Floyd’s flushing rains, many of Maine’s tidal streams and rivers were flooded with young-of-the-year alewives setting off on their maiden voyages to the sea. Suffice it to say, striped bass anglers, who are as sensitive as sea gulls to the annual migrations of juvenile alewives spawned in lakes and ponds, hooked onto some fast fishing during the past week or so.

But along with the jolting strikes and rod-bending action attendant to the late-season sport, there is the bonus pleasure of enjoying an awe-inspiring drama performed in the grand theater of the outdoors. Admission-free, no less. However, as entertaining as this seasonal show may be, it has a short run.

Because of debilitating hot, dry weather, the main-stem section of the Penobscot River ran a midsummer fever of more than 80-degrees. Consequently, on fishing expeditions to the Hampden-South Orrington stretches of the river, I didn’t see a sign of a striper after mid-June. By mid-August, tributary streams were reduced to trickles that stymied the seaward migration of young alewives.

Driven by instinct, some of the trapped fish responded to a brief rise in water provided by an early September rainstorm. But an hour of unproductive fishing proved the abbreviated discharge of fish into the Penobscot hadn’t attracted schools of stripers. In the meantime, Maine’s special Canada goose season had taken wing, creating slack in my interest in a final fling at striper fishing.

But then along came Floyd with his benevolent blast of rain. “Now or never,” I thought as skinny brooks and streams became broad-shouldered. Early Sunday morning, I paused on a long point of ledge at the mouth of Souadabscook Stream and watched stripers splashing, boiling, swirling, feeding in the swift, foaming flow.

The first six casts with a white bucktail jig brought jolting strikes from “schoolies” averaging 18 to 23 inches on the tackle-box tape. After landing a dozen or so, all of which were released, and losing a few in the interim, I left, satisfied with knowing Mother Nature had raised the curtain on another of her impressive productions.

Think about it: only a day or two earlier, there wasn’t a sign of a striper from Hampden to Bucksport. But then, like soldiers responding to chow call, the sporty fish arrived to devour the smorgasbord of juvenile alewives. And they weren’t alone: Ospreys, shags (cormorants), sea gulls and mergansers were diving and feeding diligently while a soaring eagle waited for easy pickings. The interaction of fish and fowl was fascinating to say the least.

When I later asked Rick Warren, “You interested in catching some stripers?” he answered quickly, “I could find time for that.” When it comes to fishing, the NEWS publisher seldom has to be asked twice. Starting at 7 o’clock the next morning, we caught stripers until the ebbing tide took the fish beyond our casting range. I figure we landed eight or so apiece and lost several. Strong, healthy fish, they were, many within the slot limit of 20-26 inches. Because filleted, fried striper served with a fresh garden salad is fine tablefare, we each kept a limit of one fish. Not a bad way to start a day, which Rick alluded to as we left: “That was more fun than anyone should have on a Monday morning.”

With that in mind, I started Tuesday off by having fun with six stripers before calling it quits to check a few cropped cornfields for geese. When I saw Rick at the NEWS office that afternoon, he sidled up to me saying, “Think we ought to try those stripers again?” To which I replied, “I think so.” No words wasted. Come the next morning, however, we managed to hook only six stripers. After subsequently casting and cranking for half an hour or so without a tap or a tug, I thought aloud, “It appears that the party’s over. By the looks of it, I’d say we’re seeing the end of this year’s exodus of young alewives.”

Stripers, however, have a habit of shutting off quickly as the changing tide causes them to seek new lies; whereupon the fish often begin feeding again. To make sure that wasn’t the case, and to confirm my suspicion that the seaward migration of alewives had run its course, I returned to the river on Thursday morning. While a cool northwest wind cleared the sky of sodden overcast, I fished the ebbing tide for the better part of an hour without a strike. Moreover, not a gull, shag, merganser, osprey or any other feathered fish eater showed its face.

Undoubtedly, there are a few stripers lingering, cleaning up leftovers. But it’s a sure bet the fish aren’t stacked up in the numbers that provided every-cast action earlier in the week. The message couldn’t be written more clearly: the long-awaited rise in water resulted in an en masse migration of young-of-the-year alewives spawned in the Hermon Pond watershed.

Jim Bennett of Hampden, who operates an eel weir on the Souadabscook, agreed: “I’d say the alewives and eels were flushed out,” he allowed when we talked on the phone. “Right after the rain, there was 22 inches of water going over the top of my weir.

Before heading back to my truck, I stood and watched the stream’s still heavy flow frothing and surging along outcroppings of ledge buttressing graveled banks. “It’s a dramatic performance in more ways than one,” I thought. “Here’s a fishery that’s already flourishing, already restoring itself, only a year after the grist mill dam was removed from the stream.” In the rush of water I heard the heartbeat of Mother Nature; in the interaction of alewives and stripers I felt the pulse of Planet Earth.

Now I can go goose hunting.

Tom Hennessey’s columns can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at: www.bangornews.com.