Massachusetts Striped Bass Fishing: From a Kayak in East Boston, Revere, Everett, Winthrop

Cape Ann and Woods Hole; the coves of Manchester's Misery Islands; the tidal streams of Newburyport and Joppa Flats; Duxbury's Back River; Minot Light and ledge off Scituate; Tinker's Island off Marblehead; Monomoy Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket off Cape Cod

You may find yourself fishing the Belle Isle marsh off Constitution Beach near Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, where during fishing trips prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, striped bass fishermen in kayaks could hold up their fish for the pilots to gawk at. Times were the angler kayak fishing was blasted by jet wash of such dense, roaring hotness it felt as if they would burn if their boats didn't melt first.

One area in particular worth noting in the Boston area, between East Boston and Revere, is the tidal marsh and estuarine areas behind the Suffolk Downs racetrack and the vast if tortured Winthrop marshes. Even there, in the marshes greenish water clogged with eelgrass, the kayak fishing angler can fish for schoolies with Cape Cod spinners or the ubiquitous tube and worm. Back in those marshes lie several dozen tiny coves and inlets, narrow and twisted, productive canals inaccessible to larger craft. One can catch a lot of striped bass back there, including keeper bass that meet the Massachusetts 28" striped bass keeper minimum.

Meanwhile, somewhat nearby lies the famed Deer Island striped bass fishing grounds and their associated inshore rib cage, the Faun Bar. It's a good idea to keep an eye on the weather in the Deer Island and Faun Bar areas, particularly during the fall, then September and October's prevailing northwest winds blow offshore. Just as often as keeper striped bass and the occasional cod or flounder you'll find, on the other side of the harbor, bluefish in the high-speed Hingham commuter-boat passage that lies between Thompson and Spectacle Islands.

Another worthy kayak fishing and general striped bass fishing area in Boston Harbor, particularly if you enjoy using soft plastics for surfaced schoolies during the fall run, are the waters near Boston Fire Department's training grounds at Moon Island.

Along the parking lot bulkheads and the riprap which skirts the dike and access road to the island from Quincy and Squantum, fishermen can pull up spiky adolescent striper after spiky adolescent striper simply because they keep slinging into the water a tattered plastic lure that the diving bird ignore as they work the school as hard as the fisherman works the shad and jig-head.

The twist on this picture, of course, is that the fisherman is in a plastic sit-on-top kayak or a fiberglass sea kayak launched from Squaw Rock, South Boston's City Point or Malibu Beach in Dorchester.