BOWDOINHAM, Maine — The striped bass arrived with a bang this spring on Maine’s Kennebec River, a melee of swirling currents, careening gulls and breaking fish. After several years of disappointing action, their annual migration north from the Chesapeake stirred in me an excitement I hadn’t expected.
As a fishing guide years ago, stripers had provided an income, enabling me to live by the tides and breathe the salt air daily. Now they were back. The only way to really reacquaint myself with them, I knew, was to fish every day.