06-17-2002, 11:15 AM
Under extreme condition, Team North Shore Charters left the dock @ 4:30 AM Saturday 6/15 to participate in the North Shore Atlantic Striper Classic. We proceeded directly to the groaner located approximately 3 miles behind Bakers Island in Salem looking for mac's. In 10-12 foot breaking seas, 20-30 MPH wind and driving rain, it took us about an hour to get enough mac’s to make an attempt at landing a winning striper.<br><br> We then made our way over to the Newcomb’s ledge area where the huge seas were building into gigantic breakers over the shallows, some towering to over 20 feet. After a couple of passes near the ledge, two rods bent over and line began to peel out like no tomorrow. We had a double header of huge fish. After 10 minutes of battling the fish and the seas, the first of the double header was boarded, a 33 lb’er. About 5 minutes later, the second fish was brought aside the boat and this fish was considerable larger. While weighing a live fish in heavy seas is almost impossible, we were sure this one was in the mid 30’s. We quickly released the smaller fish and began fishing the area again. Over the next hour, we caught several more fish in the 20-30 lb range, all which were released. We also had several mac’s chewed up by bluefish.<br><br> By 9:00 AM we were out of bait and the conditions were still degrading so we decided to call it a day and bring our fish into Beverly Port Marina for weighing. As it turned out, the fish weighed in at 36.4 lbs, which put us into first place. We now just had to hope and wait to see if it would hold.<br><br> As luck would have it, our efforts in fishing what some would call unfishable conditions paid off as we clinched first place.<br><br> The following day, Sunday 6/16, our charters decided to brave the challenging conditions in hope the trophy sized fish were still in the area, and they were. Anglers on boat of our boats landed several 25+ lb fish, (1) 32 lb fish and (1) 35 lb fish.<br><br>http://cptmikesfishing.com/Ma_Charter_Boats/northshore.htm<br><br>Capt Dave, North Shore Charters