On The Rocks

Photography by David Skok - Text by Steve Walburn

February/March, 2006 - Saltwater Fly Fishing Magazine

Along the jagged cliffs of Massachusetts's North Shore, you keep one eye on your footing and the other on the swells - and never, ever turn your back on the sea.

Last time out here, your buddy lost a toenail running from the overwash.  The fact is, the more dangerous the conditions, the better the fishing.  But on this calm July morning , the ragged bluffs from Nahant to Rockport offer a perfect perch for prying a few small stripers out of the nooks and crannies.  It's great hunt and peck casting.  Take a spill here, though, and it could be your last.

Back in The Big One, the U.S. built armed concrete pill boxes along the highest outcrops to help protect the port of Boston against German U-boats.  Now, these limestone bluffs are  a fortress only for summering stripers, easy prey on any fishy fly and a floating line dropped right into the whitewater.  A day trip there is half mountain climbing and half fishing, and all the better for it.