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The River Ganges or Gaṅgā – XVIII

Speaking of the fall run of striped bass and what's popularly known as stupid fishing, here's what happens in Massachusetts waters in the fall, particularly on the flats and sandspit at Marshfield, where the tidal waters of the North and South Rivers and large schools of striped bass congregate. By mid-fall expect striper thumb and essentially getting stripered-to-death on the flats during low-water blitzes.

Let's take a look at a typical fall day, for starters. First, a big mess of schoolies. Nothing unusual, except the water is only two feet deep. And then, in a guzzle adjacent to a dry flat, a keeper you might yank in on a four-inch shad, and which you have to lip back into the water because you have no ice belowdecks and no intention anyhow of heading in before the moon appeared. It will be flat calm. The moon will growing in the east horizon like the back of a big fat snowman's head, and then you will get blitzed again.

This is the dynamic. The schoolie stripers are in blind feeds on the flats in water no deeper than your shins. You paddle over there in a kayak. Fast. Thrashing like snakes, slaughtering the baitfish — which shoot through the air like seeds from a wateryoulon at a picnic — the bass smash into your boat, smash under it.

Then the tide drops further. Now you were blockaded in by enormous dry flats which lock the motorfleet out, which keep you and the fish in.

Final score back at the ramp: kayak stripers countless less one tattered shad, stripers from a scratched-up rampage whaler three plus a likely bent prop shaft.

All this from a kayak equipped with a 5'10″ Ugly Stik, a 4400 Penn Spincaster, and 12-pound test. The best part of it is, the action on the flats can stay hot until November —- cheery news for the angler looking for a big end-of-season bash before winter sets in.

A variety of lures is key here. The schools you successfully bucktail, for example, may develop a different interest a day or two later. Which means you may have to switch from that bucktail to a popper or shad, and then on to a broken-back or rattle-trap, etc., as the fall run progresses.

If bait's your preference the story's no different. Variety counts: eels if you can handle them, mackerel, pogie bits, whole sea-worms. Locals swear by seined-up pogie live-lipped and sent wandering on light leaders.

One factor aside from the typical strong fall run which makes the treacherous mouth of the North River (be wary here of fast currents and large standing waves when an incoming wind meets an outgoing tide) so consistent is the sheer amount of tidal water which flows in and out of it — the river swells with more than ten billion gallons of seawater on the flood, with a full 66% of that draining out on the ebb, a pushing and pulling action which deposits baitfish and forage all over the mouth's sandy apron.

At low tide you can see the result of this sculpting the rivermouth's intricate pattern of flats, guzzles, and streams. The structure creates productive seams, back eddies, shallows. Tribes of stripers roam in constant motion, opportunistically feeding on trapped baitfish.

Two shallow areas worthy of note where the dynamic is the same a few miles south are Duxbury Bay's Saquish rip and Captains Flat off Goose Point. Trolling the boat channels is worth the effort. Keep in mind, however, that Duxbury Bay's flats and embayments have unique local names not necessarily printed on NOAA charts. If you head there, you'd do well to stop a local with chart in hand and ask which flat is which. Getting to know the area on paper will help you avoid grounding out on the shallows everywhere.

Finally, Mother Nature's only request is this: handle your rash of fall-run schoolies with care. Sure you can hook an inordinate number of fish here in a single day during the fall run, and sure, you can very much feel like the supreme angler's angler. But are you REALLY such a hotshot? Have you protected your fish? Have you filed down your hooks' barbs? Are you taking care to resuscitate each fish ? Remember, the true fishing hero is the one who protects the resource…

Keywords for this story are striped bass fishing Massachusetts, North River Massachusetts stripers, North River tidal current, Marshfield Massachusetts fishing, flats fishing Massachusetts

About the writer: fishing guide Adam Bolonsky writes about the outdoors for NorthAmericanKayakFishing and Sea Kayaking Dot Net.