Fishing in Marshfield, MA: Green Harbor and Its Bait Shops

Green Harbor: A Working Harbor, Not a Marina Row

Green Harbor is Marshfield's fishing anchor, and it earns that status honestly. The Town of Marshfield's own Harbormaster page lists four real, currently operating facilities clustered around Dyke Road (also spelled Dike Road in some town documents, since the road doubles as Green Harbor's flood-control causeway): Safe Harbor Green Harbor, a branded marina at 239 Dyke Rd that's part of the national Safe Harbor Marinas network; Green Harbor Marina, which sells gas and food (781-837-1181); Taylor Marina, which sells gas and diesel (781-837-9617); and the Green Harbor Yacht Club at 257 Dyke Road (781-834-9115). Together they support what the Harbormaster's own facility list describes as a genuine small commercial and recreational fishing community — this research did not find a specific historical count of Green Harbor's commercial fishing fleet, and no number should be assumed here, but the marina density and the charter operations below are real, current evidence of an actual working harbor rather than a purely recreational one.

The harbor sits behind a jetty currently in line for a $10 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers realignment project — a decade-plus in the making, addressing loose granite blocks and sediment buildup that have caused real navigation problems for boats using the channel. That's a civic and infrastructure story covered in more depth elsewhere on this site; for an angler or boater, the practical takeaway is that Green Harbor's entrance itself has known, currently-being-addressed navigation issues, worth a call to the Harbormaster (781-834-6655) before a first trip through the channel.

Charter Boats Actually Departing From Green Harbor

Several real, currently operating charter businesses depart from Green Harbor rather than simply fishing Massachusetts Bay from elsewhere. Big Fish Charters (also branded Big Fish II Sportfishing Charters), based at 365 Grove St in Marshfield and reachable at 781-834-7504, advertises "over 50 years experience" and runs seven-day-a-week trips targeting cod, haddock, tuna (including giant bluefin), shark, striped bass, bluefish, pollock, halibut, wolffish, and monkfish — a genuinely broad species list for a single operation. Chasin Tail Charters, run by Captain Jeff DePersia (781-706-2565), departs from Green Harbor on a six-passenger boat and specializes in Stellwagen Bank groundfishing (cod, haddock, pollock) alongside tuna, striped bass, and shark trips (blue, mako, porbeagle, and thresher). Cathy Ann Charters likewise operates out of Green Harbor in Marshfield, billing itself as a Cape Cod-area saltwater operation for striped bass, tuna, and deep-sea fishing.

Beyond those three, charter-booking aggregators list additional Marshfield-based boats — including Team T Fishing Charters (a 30-foot boat running bluefin tuna, striped bass, and porbeagle/blue shark trips) and Black Rose Fishing Charters, captained by a Captain Rich on a 25-foot boat — alongside several nearby Plymouth and Scituate operations that fish the same stretch of Massachusetts Bay but are not homeported in Marshfield itself. As with any charter, call ahead to confirm current-season availability, licensing, and pricing directly with the captain rather than relying on an aggregator listing.

The recurring destination named across these operations is Stellwagen Bank — the well-known National Marine Sanctuary sitting in Massachusetts Bay between Cape Ann and Cape Cod — which several Green Harbor-based captains specifically cite as their groundfishing grounds. That's a genuine, differentiated piece of local fishing geography: Green Harbor's charter fleet isn't just working inshore water, it's running boats out to one of the region's most productive named fishing banks.

Three Named Bait & Tackle Shops

Ferry Street Bait and Tackle, at 1240 Ferry Street in Marshfield (781-837-2265), is the most solidly confirmed of the town's tackle shops — it's listed directly on the town's own Harbormaster page as well as independent Yelp and directory listings, which is a stronger footing than most small bait shops get.

Green Harbor Bait & Tackle is a second, genuinely Marshfield-specific shop, confirmed via Yelp and Facebook listings tied to a 239 Dyke Rd address — the same road as Safe Harbor Green Harbor's marina, so it likely operates in or near the marina itself. One honest wrinkle: the Better Business Bureau's file on this business (opened in 2018, owner listed as Kati Pronk, business start date January 2007) currently states the business "appears to be no longer in business," while a Yelp listing for the same shop and address was still showing as updated as recently as June 2025. Those two signals conflict, so the responsible move is to call ahead before making a special trip rather than assume either source is current.

Grumpy's Bait & Tackle rounds out the list — confirmed as a real, currently-referenced Marshfield business via Nextdoor and Yellow Pages listings, though no specific street address turned up in this research. As with Green Harbor Bait & Tackle, treat "Grumpy's" as real but call ahead, since small single-location tackle shops are exactly the kind of business that changes hours, or closes, without every directory catching up.

Three Rivers, Three Different Kinds of Fishing

Marshfield's name itself comes from its extensive salt marsh along three river systems — the North River, the South River, and the Green Harbor/Green's Harbor River — and each offers a genuinely different fishing character rather than being interchangeable water. The North River and South River are tidal rivers threading through salt marsh, the kind of water that favors light-tackle and small-boat fishing for species that move with the tide through structure rather than open-water trolling. The Green Harbor river system is the harbor itself — the working, marina-and-jetty water described above. And beyond both, Marshfield's ocean-facing beaches (Green Harbor, Brant Rock, Rexhame, Fieldston, Sunrise, and Ocean Bluff) front the open water of Massachusetts Bay directly, with no barrier island softening the approach the way Duxbury Beach does further south. A boat leaving Green Harbor's jetty is immediately in that open bay water; a rod fished from the North or South River bank is fishing something calmer and more sheltered. Treat these as three distinct fishing environments, not one generic "Marshfield water."

What Actually Bites Here

Across the charter listings confirmed above, the consistent, named targets are striped bass, bluefish, and — for boats running out to Stellwagen Bank or working offshore — cod, haddock, pollock, and bluefin tuna, with shark trips (blue, mako, porbeagle, thresher) offered seasonally by more than one Green Harbor operation. That's a genuinely broader species list than a purely inshore town would support, reflecting Green Harbor's position as a real access point to Massachusetts Bay's offshore grounds rather than just a sheltered anchorage. Spring through fall is the realistic season for the inshore species; offshore groundfishing and tuna trips run on their own seasonal and regulatory windows that are worth confirming directly with a captain rather than assumed from this page a year out.

Shellfishing and Permits

Recreational shellfishing in Marshfield runs through the town's Harbormaster's Office, located at the Town Pier, which the town's own site states directly issues shellfish permits on-site — "Shellfish Permits are now available in the Harbormaster's Office at the Town Pier." The town's public-facing page did not lay out specific bag limits, minimum sizes, or open/closed shellfishing areas in the material available for this research, and those details shift with water-quality testing and season the way they do in every Massachusetts coastal town; call the Harbormaster's Office directly at 781-834-6655 for the current year's rules before digging in the North River, South River, or Green Harbor's flats.

The Honest Bottom Line

Marshfield's real, confirmable fishing story is Green Harbor: a working harbor with three marinas, a yacht club, and a small but genuine charter fleet running boats out to Stellwagen Bank and Massachusetts Bay for striped bass, tuna, and groundfish, alongside two or three named bait-and-tackle shops of varying current-operating certainty. The North and South Rivers offer a calmer, tidal-marsh alternative to the harbor's open-water access, and the town's Harbormaster's Office is the actual point of contact for both boating navigation questions and recreational shellfish permits. What this page won't do is dress Marshfield up with a specific historical fleet-count, invented tackle-shop addresses, or a Duxbury-style Gurnet surfcasting narrative that belongs to the neighboring town, not this one.