Maine Coast Fishing Report: Stripers, Bluefish, and Shark Sightings

This is Artificial Lure with your Maine coast Atlantic Ocean fishing report for August 20, 2025. Sunrise rolled in at 5:49AM, with a gorgeous glow over the water, and we’re looking at sunset tonight about 7:38PM. For you early risers, those pre-dawn hours were as calm as you’d hope, and the bite’s been best at both ends of the day.

Tide-wise, this morning brought us a low around 3:45AM, first high at 10:02AM, then another low mid-afternoon. That means prime moving water for stripers and blues right after first light, and again late afternoon into evening, especially along rocky points and estuary mouths, according to Tide-Forecast.com. The Gulf of Maine’s seeing north winds between 10 and 20 knots with seas 4 to 7 feet, calming a bit as we move into midweek as outlined by the National Weather Service marine briefing. Be cautious if heading offshore—hurricane swells are rippling up the coast thanks to Erin out in the Atlantic, so watch changing conditions.

Weather’s been classic August—upper 60s to mid-70s along the shoreline, patchy fog early but burning off to mostly sunny skies. Water temps hovering near 65°F inshore, cool enough to keep the mackerel schools thick around the islands and ledges.

Striped bass action is still hot—fish up to 35 inches reported off Scarborough and around the mouth of the Saco River over the last couple of mornings. Schoolies are holding in the rivers and marshes with a few slot keepers in the mix. Anglers are having luck with live eels and chunk mackerel at night, and casting soft plastics or white bucktail jigs on the outgoing tide near rocky structure. Bluefish have pushed in hard, thrashing bait near Popham and Biddeford Pool—diamond jigs and flashy spoons are the ticket there.

Mackerel are all over—kids and adults alike are filling buckets at Portland Head Light and around Cape Elizabeth, sabiki rigs tipped with bits of cut squid or just shiny spoons are doing damage on the bigger tides. Sea bass and scup have been more of a southern New England story, but there are keeper sea bass on deep reefs south of Saco. J&J Sports notes that Clam and Berkley Gulp continue to work great for sea bass.

Flounder and haddock are still on the inshore rubble piles but moving deeper as the season shifts—dropper rigs with strips of squid or sandworms are solid bets if you anchor up over rough bottom.

Shark alert: Great white sightings have hit local headlines again, with confirmed 6- to 10-footers off Ogunquit and Scarborough the past 48 hours according to Bangor Daily News and Scarborough PD. If you’re swimming or targeting mackerel from a kayak, stay alert. Most sightings are July-September and less than a handful per summer, but these apex predators are here for the seals—and the bait—so keep at least one eye seaward.

Best lures right now: White soft plastics (6-inch paddletails), metal spoons, and surface poppers for bass and bluefish. Mackerel sticks, Sabiki rigs for bait. If after something bigger or on the reefs, pink or glow bucktails tipped with Gulp are proven producers.

Top hot spots this week: Ferry Beach State Park for stripers and bluefish, especially where the river outflow meets the surf. Another is Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth, targeting the edges of the boulder fields. Offshore, Jeffrey’s Ledge is still producing mixed bag groundfish and the odd tuna for boats able to make the run.

That’s your on-the-water update—tight lines to everyone headed out there today. Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to subscribe for your daily dose of salty news and insider tips.

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