June is always an exciting month for those fully immersed in Maine’s Outdoors sporting opportunities.
Turkey season comes to an end, which means no more 3 a.m. alarms set for early morning hunts. Temperatures rise, and the occasional stiflingly hot, humid day serves as a reminder to secure bear bait for that upcoming season.
Brand new, wobbly-legged lamb deer can be seen following closely behind their protective mothers. Excitement and anticipation builds for thousands of hunters as the state’s annual moose permit lottery drawing — to be held June 15 in Fort Kent — edges closer by the day.
And as the month wears on, saltwater anglers in our midcoast region excitedly monitor points, jetties, coves, reversing falls and beaches for signs of a frenzy. Then finally, someone yells out for all the world to hear — “The stripers are in!”
I’m fairly new to the striped bass fishing community, having picked it up just a few years ago. I would have joined much earlier, if not for a lack of opportunity in my area.
I remember stripers being a big deal when I was a youngster, and I loved listening to our neighbor, Billy, tell tales of 40-inch monster fish he would catch from shore at The Carrying Place beach in Surry.
My father and I stopped by one summer night to visit with Billy as he kept careful watch on two giant surf rods while they sat in PVC pipes driven into the sand. Within minutes, a rod bent and he reeled in a bluefish nearly half my size.
While I didn’t see a striper caught that night, I was nonetheless enthralled by the thought of it.
I’ve never fully understood why, but by the time I was old enough to venture out to hunt and fish on my own, striper fishing had somehow become a thing folks only used to do. The fishery had all but disappeared in our area, and I had no interest in traveling south to chase it.
But that changed a handful of years ago when suddenly, the fish began to slowly come back. At first, I was only mildly interested, but as reports of more, and bigger fish being landed locally poured in over the course of a couple summers, I wanted in on the action.
After a modest investment in some appropriate gear and tackle, I set out determined to finally lay my hands on a striper of my own. A few area fishermen kindly offered some tips, tricks, knowledge and spots to try, but for the most part, it would be trial and error.
I hit it hard that first season, fishing the tides at known haunts day after day, casting an Atom popper hundreds and hundreds of times without so much as a strike.
Occasionally, I’d change things up a bit by bouncing a 5-inch rubber storm shad along the bottom to no avail.
I started to believe striped bass were simply mythical creatures conjured up by the angling world to play some extravagant practical joke on me. But then, as the sun faded on the evening of July 5, 2021, I promised myself one more cast before heading home.
Like hundreds of times before, I let the popper spit its way slowly across an eddy after ripping it free from the strong current. The strike was shocking, and caught me off guard.
As the popper stalled momentarily, an all-out explosion erupted from beneath it, accompanied by a loud smacking noise, as if the water had been slapped with a canoe paddle. The line went tight, the rod bent in half, and I was astonished by the strength of the fish.
A couple minutes later, spent from the fight, a 29-inch striped bass slowly glided into the shallows at my feet. I easily lifted it from the water, and in that moment, I became just as hooked.
I’m certainly not what one might call a die-hard striper fisherman. I possess just enough skill and knowledge to hit a few local tides at the right time, and land a dozen or so fish each summer with some simple gear and tackle, but I absolutely love it.
There are folks who take it far more seriously, and I have friends who are hard-core addicts.
It’s still a little early, but as we head into mid-June, I’m enjoying a little more sleep, trying to figure out where to get bear bait, impatiently waiting for the moose lottery drawing, regularly watching a doe with her lamb in our backyard, and listening carefully for my favorite alarm to be sounded — “The stripers are in!”
