Last night I had the pleasure of taking a young fly fisher on the water in search of his first striped bass on the fly. We started our outing around 7:30 pm at a tidal outflow where there had been a worm hatch the evening prior. Severe seaweed and a lack of worms thwarted our efforts so we packed up and moved to Bristol to see what could be found there.
Arriving at our spot in Bristol, the two of us were welcomed by the twinkling of nervous silversides as well as the pops and splashes of feeding bass. Loring continued to work the run for a while, employing dead drifts and swings. Soon the bass moved further down the run. We moved with them, sent a long cast down current, set up a big wetfly swing and WHACK! fish on! It took some work, but Loring was tight to his fist striped bass on the fly. Loring did an excellent job of fighting the fish. He used a low rod angle, applied side pressure when needed, and steered the fish right to me at the end. Seeing as it was almost 11 pm when we released that fish we decided to call it a night. We had what we came for, and now it was bedtime.
