The improvement of the quality of the water in the Hudson, Delaware and Chesapeake and size limits and the new catch and release ethos has generated a revival of historic proportions.
While no verified catches have been reported — not by Al Williams, Cape Ann’s striper guru and traditional first catcher, not by Nubar Alexandrian, the photographer who got credit for the first catch in 2007, and not by Porter Bingle, who was credited with the first striper last year — a spin caster yesterday did say he’d caught two schoolies in the Little River two weekends ago.
Two other fishing hopefuls — one, pink-hatted, who insisted he was "Just Plain Bill" from Manchester, the other John Adams from Rockport — were throwing flies into the channel at low tide in the afternoon behind Nichols Candies shop where the first bass are generally found.