Maine Outdoor Journal

... and it is - flats fishing isn't yet common in Maine, but there are a few anglers out there trying for stripers this way.
By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Staff Writer

CASCO BAY - Mac McKeever can count on one hand the number of times he's seen a flats boat in Maine being used for sight fishing since he stared angling for stripers that way eight years ago.

Flats fishing, also known as sight fishing, is not popular in Maine – but it is effective. McKeever learned to sight fish in Florida, where he casts into clear turquoise water to 7-foot tarpons.

But for 2-foot stripers off the chilly coast of Maine? McKeever and a few other fishermen say it can be done.

"It's our own piece of Yankee Bahamas," McKeever said. "The only thing missing is the palm trees. I've seen guys trying it on step ladders. ... In Maine, there are only a handful of anglers with true flats-fishing skiffs."

McKeever was turned on to flats fishing in Maine by – of all things – a telephone company worker. The worker saw stripers in the shallows while sitting high on a telephone pole on a coastal road, and he tipped McKeever off.

Once McKeever started catching stripers in the flats, he ordered a platform to install on his skiff so he could pole in the mud flats.

Now he only casts to striped bass in 1 to 2 feet of water.

It's tough but rewarding, said the Portland resident, L.L. Bean's senior public relations representative.

"When you see them, you have to make a quick presentation," McKeever said. "You can see for a long way out. But they are very spooky in the shallows."

The way sight fishing works is that the person casting doesn't even see the fish. Another person does the poling by standing at the back of the boat on a platform, sees the fish first, and relays the location.

The best technique for the fisherman, McKeever said, is to cast to just ahead of where the fish are moving. Striped bass have great eyesight, and in flats fishing, McKeever said, presentation is everything.

Flies used for flats fishing include small baitfish, shrimp and crab patterns – food stripers find in the flats and on mussel beds.

The best conditions to flats fish are when it is hot and still. Sight fishing requires high sun and low wind so that the water is flat and easy to see into from the boat. McKeever calls it "gin-clear water."

"It's technical fishing. That's why it's great fun trying to crack the code," he said.

Few have done so on the Maine coast.

John Ford, a Portland guide who specializes in sight fishing, is one. But he doesn't see it taking off in Maine.

While Florida and even Cape Cod have many more miles of sandy bottom, Maine's got mostly mud.

"It started catching on in Cape Cod 15 years ago. Guys started discovering that stripers were in real shallow water," Ford said.

Maine-based Eric Wallace is another guide who specializes in sight fishing in Maine. He said few others do.

"It's not an easy place to just show up and learn to fish this way," Wallace said.

Wallace makes most of his living from guiding for stripers in the flats. He guides in Maine from May through October before he heads south to guide.

"I've been doing it eight years, and am just starting to see people putting platforms on their boats; going out and fishing the shallows of Casco Bay," Wallace said.

A week ago when McKeever went out, there was an abundance of baitfish, a sign stripers could be about. Except none were.

"I can't compete with that," McKeever said, peering down from his platform at the rush of tiny sand eels.

Because of all the recent rain, the water went from green to brown. Around McKeever's boat, despite a clear-blue sky, the mud from runoff darkened the water. In two hours, McKeever saw just one striper.

Wallace thinks the stripers were elsewhere that day.

"There are ways to coax these fish, to play to their mood. You need to learn how to feed fish when they are moody," Wallace said.

Despite the technical challenge of the sport, McKeever believes it will catch on among fishermen – if not guides.

Wallace also thinks the potential is there.

"Of all the places I go, it is one of the coolest fisheries," he said. "There are mud and sand and mussel beds and outer tides. We basically have tons of acres of flats. We just got a giant soup kitchen of bass."

STRIPER FISHING REGULATIONS

Open season is Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.

Bag limit is one fish per day between 20 and 26 inches or 40 inches and greater.

Separate regulations apply to the Kennebec, the Sheepscot and the Androscoggin rivers. For details, go to www.maine.gov.

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at: dfleming@pressherald.com