Granite State Stripers
Saying that the 18 miles of New Hampshire’s ocean shoreline is the extent of the state’s striper fishing is like saying that the entire iceberg is on the surface. Most of New Hampshire’s striper fishery is away from the beach—hidden in the estuaries—and it is some of the best and most accessible striper fishing on the East Coast. All you need to know is when and where to find it.
Great Bay Estuary
The Great Bay Estuary is the dominant geological feature of southeastern New Hampshire’s coastline. It consists of Great Bay, Little Bay, and the Piscataqua River. Six other major rivers contribute to the estuary. Combined, these rivers drain approximately 927 square miles (2,400 square kilometers) of land in New Hampshire and Maine.
Great Bay and Little Bay cover an area of more than 5,000 acres of tidal water and mud flats, with more than 48 miles of shoreline. With 9-foot tides, the water moves from place to place in a hurry. The good news is that the moving water propels large numbers of baitfish back and forth, tumbling them about for the waiting stripers. The bad news is that a boat on a flat can be left high and dry on a rapidly falling tide.
The Rivers
The Squamscott River begins as the freshwater Exeter River, tumbles over the dam in downtown Exeter, and becomes a tidal river for the next 4 miles before entering Little Bay at the west end of Great Bay, between Stratham and Newfields. In May, huge schools of herring enter the Squamscott on their upstream spawning migration to Exeter, where they collect below the low dam.
The herring run attracts both anglers and lobstermen. The lobstermen throw modified wire baskets from the downtown String Bridge to capture the herring and fill 55-gallon drums with salt herring for lobster bait. Striper fishers throw 7- to 10-inch herring imitations to big, hungry striped bass.
Two ramps for small boats, one in Exeter and one on Route 108 in Stratham, provide access to the river. Several fixed bridges, including a railroad bridge at the entrance to Little Bay, limit the height of passing boats. The railroad bridge has only a 4-foot clearance at high tide, and even less during some of the spring tides. From Exeter to Little Bay, the river channel is marked, and boaters should stay within the bouys. Wading anglers can also access the Squamscott and nearby good fishing at the boat ramps.
While the Lamprey River doesn’t have as large a herring run as the Squamscott, it does have salmon smolts. New Hampshire Fish and Game stocks the smolts in the spring as part of its Atlantic salmon stocking program. The smolts run the gauntlet below the dam in Newmarket, dodging the stripers stacked up like cordwood. There is a ramp suitable for car-toppers in the town of Newmarket. Wading fly fishers can also use the ramp for access.
The other significant fishing area is the river mouth, where the Lamprey enters Little Bay. Stripers and blues chase baitfish in and out of the river during the change of tides. This is an ideal spot for a kayak. Kayak fishers can put in at either the ramp in Newmarket or the ramp on the Squamscott, and then paddle to the sod banks that line the Lamprey River outlet. Quietly walking and casting along the sod banks can yield big stripers nosing along the banks looking for crabs, worms, and shrimp.
The Oyster, Bellamy, and Winnicut rivers have their own small runs of upriver stripers, but their real contribution to the New Hampshire striper fishery is at their outlets. On the outgoing tide, stripers collect to ambush bait exiting these rivers.
The flats on the east side of the Oyster River attract big stripers on high tides. The bass root for crabs on the fertile tidal flats, and the deep water near the marsh grass provides stripers with a sense of security.
Wading fishers can access the river from Wagon Hill Farm off Route 4, east of Durham. Small boaters can use a high-tide-only ramp at Jackson’s Landing in Durham.
The most significant fishery in the Great Bay estuary is the Piscataqua River. It drains a large area and provides two outlets to the sea, deep water, flats, salt marshes, and several small creeks. There is plenty of access for boaters and wading fly fishers.
Odiorne State Park
Odiorne State Park is on Route 1A just south of Portsmouth. There are two entrances to the park, one into the Seacoast Science Center, and the other about a mile north, where there is a boat ramp. I use the term “boat ramp” loosely, as there isn’t much ramp available at low tide. At mid to high tide, the ramp works for boats up to 20 feet. There is a state park fee for vehicles at both entrances (see nhstateparks.org for details).
From the parking lot adjacent to the boat ramp, fly fishers can access the Berry Brook/Witch Creek outlet, as well as a large tidal flat where stripers cruise during high tide. When the wind is calm, and with a good pair of polarized sunglasses, you can watch large bass feeding on the abundant crabs and baitfish on the flat.
These big cruisers—some are 30 to 40 inches—in skinny water are spooky and difficult to catch. I have seen bass rooting out crabs and tailing like bonefish on the edges of the channels, but if your Merkin lands too closely or splashes loudly, they disappear. And if the fly lands too far away, they won’t see it.
You need to cast well ahead of a slowly moving fish and time your retrieve to intercept the striper. When the fish approaches, give your crab imitation a few short twitches to bring it to life, then let it drop to the bottom like the real thing.
The most consistently productive way to catch stripers in this area is to blind-cast along the channel edges, where many bass cruise in the deeper water, especially during the outgoing tides. Crab and shrimp imitations, as well as standard baitfish patterns, all draw strikes.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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