FRESH BAIT AND FREE ADVICE. York native Gardner Marshall and wife Aletta stand outside their York Village & Harbor R.R. Bait Shop, which has been supplying local and visiting fishermen with saltwater tackle and quality bait for the past 16 years. The shop, put up inside their converted garage, is on York Street just across from Foster's Clam Bake.
Photo by Steve Rasche
GOT ONE! Local bridge fisherman Ron Sciucco holds up a 23-inch striped bass caught last week off Sewall's Bridge.
Photo by Santiago Mare
ARE THEY THERE? A family enjoys a summer evening's pastime on Aug. 4 on the Route 103 bridge over the York River, catching at least a break in the weather while angling for striper.
Photo by Tori Rasche
YORK - When Gardner Marshall talks about bait and stripers in the York River, it's no fish tale.
On the side wall of his bait shop is a faded picture of a strapping young fisherman on the dock in York Harbor holding up a 64-pound striped bass caught on a rod and reel right there in the harbor. The proud fisherman is Gardner himself, and the catch was a state record in 1964.
These days you can find Gardner and his wife Aletta sitting comfortably in their garage-turned-bait and tackle shop on York Street just across from Foster's Clam Bake.
A York native who has lived in the same house all his life, Gardner opened up his bait shop, The York Village & Harbor R.R. Bait Shop, 16 years ago. The name refers to the old trolley that used to run through the Marshall's back yard.
"When he was just a boy he used to stand and wave at the train as it went by, and he just has a good memory of it," said Aletta.
Gardner's father built the house that the Marshalls live in, back when the family ran the hardware store in York Village in the building that now houses Ellis Insurance.
"We go pretty much by word of mouth," said Aletta about the bait shop, "but we seem to grow every year."
"I'm fussy about my bait," said Gardner. "It's gotta be fresh, and it does make a difference."
For fishing in the river, Gardner says that in a normal year chunked herring and clams work best.
"Not river clams," warns Gardner, "they gotta be sea clams. The fish won't take river clams."
But whether fresh bait, flies or lures, the striper season so far has seen catches far below past years in the river and harbor, and up and down the Northern New England coast as well.
While reports indicate that the striper population is healthy offshore, the fish prized for both sporting and eating has been a hard catch in coastal waters so far.
"I've fished off Sewall's Bridget for the past 10 years," explained Ron Sciucco of Cape Neddick, who catches and releases striped bass or gives the fish he catches his fellow fishermen who eat them.
His average has been about 100 fish in a year, Sciucco said, but this year that has all changed.
"There are days when there's not even a bite," he said during a recent interview. "There are plenty of bait fish in the river, but there are few striped bass."
Like Sciucco, longtime York resident Barrie Munro has also seen a steep decline in the number of stripers - both in the York River and the Piscataqua.
"In a normal year by now I would have caught several hundred bass, but I've caught six or seven," he said.
Munro said he has fished the York River about 15 times this year, using the same lures and flies as in the past.
"I have very little to show for that effort," he said.
Department of Marine Resources Patrol Sgt. Rick LaFlamme said York is not alone in seeing this trend, explaining he has "talked to a lot of fisherman up and down the entire coast and other Marine Patrol officers and they are seeing a lot less striped bass this year."
LaFlamme said that so far his department is uncertain of the exact cause.
"I have talked to some of the tuna fleet and they have seen huge schools of striped bass offshore three to 15 miles," he said. "I have also heard and seen huge schools of menhaden get swooped up by the purse seiners, so the striped bass the charter boats were catching around them seem to have all disappeared. The complaints have been coming in to me and other officers about these situations."
One theory that many give credence is that an increase in the bait fish population has allowed the stripers to get their fill before they make any runs up the river.
"We're seeing three-pound mackerel here now," said Gardner Marshall, "haven't seen those in a long, long time."
"We've had lots of mackerel," agreed Munro. "More mackerel than I've ever seen."
Munro had contacted the Department of Marine Resources and said there does not seem to be a known cause for the decline in striper, but many local fishermen believe the bass may not be interested because they are getting more than enough natural food. Early in the season, he said, the fish were not responsive to lures, though some fly fishermen were doing well in select spots. Munro said the bass have been larger than ordinary and extremely well-fed, but few and far between.
York fishing pros like Dave Gittens and Bill Coite are catching fish, Munro said, but he has heard many professional fishermen are having a more difficult year than usual. He said local fishermen are waiting on the fall migration for the return of those fish that have gone north.
"It's just been wonderful in the fall in the past," he said, adding, "We're in the same mode again, hoping that this will be the case, but it's illogical to assume that we're going to have the same success this year we've had in years past."
The heavy rains of the summer so far may also play a role, suggested locals with knowledge of the river.
Torbert Macdonald, Jr., who has studied the York River extensively, said that while he does not know about the fishing issue per se, "there is definitely an increase in sedimentation of the river as we get more impermeable surfaces upstream."
As vegetation is stripped from the river banks to make way for views or paths to the water, he said, "we get more and more water coming into the river, and any time we have high tide with the combination of heavy rains, we get bank erosion. ... That I know for sure is happening to the river."
In terms of freshwater runoff into the York River, Munro said that "this year, certainly we've had a rain pattern that has not been helpful."
However, he said, the reason for the scarcity of striped bass is simply not known.
"We'd all feel a lot better if we knew what this is," he said.
York Shoreland Resource Officer Ben McDougal said that the Department of Marine Resources tests the York River for pollution, and the town has not been notified of any issues related to that or the decreased fish population.
"Maybe it's all just a cycle," shrugged Sciucco. "They say there are lots of jellyfish on the beach down in Massachusetts and New York this year, so who knows?"
On a quiet morning this past Tuesday, it seemed, for Sciucco at least, that the cycle might be turning.
Reeling in a 23-inch catch off Sewall's Bridge, the fish was his second striper of the day.
Munro relayed a similar story.
Fishing in the past week with local guide Dave Gittens, Munro said they came upon "busting bass" feeding near the surface.
"We did catch five fish, all in what we call the school size. The largest one was 21 inches," he said.
Speaking of fishing in general, Sciucco, a retiree who has owned a home in York for 22 years, gets reflective. Sciucco said he has always fished off Sewall's Bridge not only for the fishing itself but for the beauty of the location with its views of the York River.
"There was an old-timer from Dover named Russ, he's the one that taught me how to fish this bridge," said Sciucco.
When Russ died several years back, Sciucco said that Russ's family put a picture of him on a stand by his casket showing him at Sewall's bridge holding a striper he had caught. Sciucco had taken the picture.
"Made me feel happy when I heard that," he said.
Of his secrets for fishing the bridge, Sciucco said he always fishes the incoming tide, and that he always uses a slider and weight.
"There's no need to cast, the current just takes it."
As for his preferred bait, for Sciucco there's only one place to go: "Chunked herring from Gardner's."
Sciucco likes to fish with two poles when there is room, but puts one away when things get crowded to make room for others.
"It's very popular here on the weekend, elbow to elbow," he said.
Sciucco doesn't mind the crowds though and said he likes to see young children get excited about fishing.
Sometimes when he has a fish hooked and there are kids on the bridge watching or walking by he will give them the pole and let them reel it in.
"You should see their faces when they feel that big fish on the line," he said with a smile.
This season's striper mystery aside, both Sciucco and the Gardners had another worry looming in the distance in the form of increasing talk about the introduction of a license for saltwater fishing.
While freshwater fishing has long required a license to cover costs associated with stocking and management, saltwater sport fishing has always been free and unlicensed.
"They don't stock the ocean do they?" asked Sciucco. "That idea's just terrible. There are a lot of retired people that fish. This state is always trying to put their hands in our pockets."
Aletta Gardner agreed and said that a saltwater license would harm their business.
"It'd be just one more thing," she said. "People come here on vacation. They don't want to have to go out and get a license just to fish in the ocean for a day. They just want to go."
