Kayak and Small-Boat Striper Fishing Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts

Manchester, Massachusetts, a north shore town also known as Manchester-by-the-Sea, that lies about 45 minutes north of Boston and twenty minutes from better-known Gloucester, provides numerous advantages to inshore striper fishermen. Tin skiff, jon boat, center-consoler and kayak fishermen alike will find good access points for hand-carrying or trailer their boats to the water.

The town's well-protected inner harbor, from its boatyards and docks and mooring areas to the beginning of open water at House and Ram Islands, is a fine fishery in and of itself. Structure in the inner harbor ranges from rocky shallows and dredged channels to eel grass sand flats, from shoreline rocks and bluffs to sandy beaches and coves. Striped bass hold here in the spring and fall; the patient fisherman who arrives equipped with tube-and-worm lure and a box of seaworms or a variety of metal and plastic lures will do well, particularly in the early morning and at night.

Another advantage to the area is its proximity to a number of offshore ledges and islands: Boo Hoo Ledge to the east, Whaleback Ledge to the southeast, the depths of the Salem Sound approach channel, the offshore ledges and gravel bars of the nearby Gooseberries and Misery Islands.

Less experienced small boat users can stick to the area's inner waters and shores. Those with longer and faster, more seaworthy boats can range out of the area to the many dozens of offshore spots that extend towards Marblehead and Gloucester.

Manchester also has another advantage. It's just a ten-minute drive from the highway - route 128 - that runs between Boston and Gloucester. Well-maintained and rarely plagued by heavy traffic, 128 is convenient to routes 95 and 93, making the town readily accessible to fishermen from Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Manchester is a sleepy little town, a hamlet almost, where the visiting angler will find your typical range of early morning breakfast places, coffee shops, etc. but, unfortunately, not bait and tackle shops. Fishing here is any easy proposition, and on all but the busiest of summer weekends, when the fishing tends to be slow, access to the town's three put-ins, one of which includes a trailer ramp, is plentiful and free.

Come fall, when the harbor begins to empty out of its pleasure boats and schools of mackerel frequent the area, the fishing can be even better especially if you tire of trolling and casting and want to live-line mackerel for bigger fish. The area also supports a robust late fall inshore cod fishery, and flounder during the summer.

Here are a few pointers when fishing the area. Boat traffic in the transit routes from the inner harbor to open water, especially towards Salem Sound and the Misery Islands, can be almost intolerable from mid-morning on during summer weekends. The harbor entrance is narrow, lined by and dozens of moored boats line along its eastern edge.


So-called Stinkpot Alley, which runs between Bakers Island and Misery Island outside of the harbor, provides primary access to nearby and busy Beverly and Salem Harbors where powerboats are the boat of choice. The parade of fast-moving traffic in the channel can be intimidating..

Finally, all of the area's waters but for the inner harbor's are vulnerable and exposed to weather from the east. The swell can get quite large, likewise breaking waves on the area's ledges and islands. Keep an eye peeled seaward for the unexpected approaching boomer when seas are from the east. And during the humid dog days of summer, keep an eye on the western sky. Thunderstorms are a commonplace here, their harbinger the low black cloud mass in the western half of the sky and a mass of whitecaps.

Finally a word about lures. Most striper fishermen in Massachusetts prefer trolling the ubiquitous tube-and-worm, an effective if bulky lure that requires slow trolling close to shore and structure. Good alternatives in the fall, when stripers feed much closer to the surface, commonly creating surface boils, are any number of soft plastic lures: shads-and-jigheads, sluggoes, etc. Equally effective are metals like Kastmaters, deepwater swimmers and bucktail jigs.