On The Water, Bob Sampson, Jr.

1. Finally, 10 days of good weather and sunshine have dried things out and dropped river levels, allowing for pleasant but difficult Opening Day conditions for both Connecticut and Rhode Island trout fishermen. The high pressure and clear skies have made the fishing a little tougher than it should be on the Thames, where the striped bass are starting to stir as they chase herring up into all the alewife spawning areas on the river.
2. Steve McKenna of Quaker Lane Bait and Tackle, North Kingstown told us fishing took a turn for the better in all the right places along the south shore this week. He said they are small fish but that’s better than no fish, and the action has been hot when the tides are right. There are also small bass up inside Narragansett Bay, with schoolies reported as far as Warwick.
3. Winter flounder action has been pretty good since the season started on April 16. This is a short season that ends May 23, so anglers are hitting it hard while they can, with mixed results.
4. Not much on tautog yet, but they should be showing up any time now.
5. Trout fishing got mixed reviews in Rhode Island since the Rhody opening day, due to the near constant high pressure and blue skies. Waters were high along with the pressure, so despite the nice weather, the fishing was not so hot, but the fish are abundant and big and will begin feeding heavily, sooner or later.
6. Steve also heard unconfirmed reports of bigger bass that he thinks are holdovers up inside the Narrow River. One customer reportedly caught a 35-pounder while targeting schoolies on a freshwater rig and small bucktail.
7. The southwest wind is really helping the schoolie fishing off the walls.
8. Peter at Saltwater Edge, Newport reported that things are beginning to stir in his area. He said they have schoolies on First and Second Beaches in town for the usual evening bite on small Storm bucktails with grubs on the tail end.
9. Captain Andy Dangelo of Maridee Bait and Tackle, Narragansett verified that anglers are catching schoolies off the West Wall and at Potter Pond, along with a few from around the mouth of Narrow River. The hot lure has been a soft plastic I am unfamiliar with called a Cocohoe that is similar to the popular Storm swim baits. With a half-ounce head, the schoolies eat ‘em up.
10. The winter flounder fishing has been spotty. The fish are few, scattered and thin in Pt. Judith Pond. All the catches they have heard of at Maridee have been from small boats, none from the shore at this point.
11. Ronnie at Breachway Tackle, Charlestown told us schoolies are at Deep Hole, Carpenters Bar, the West Wall and at the Breachway. Nothing major in numbers or quality yet, but there are fish around to catch. As always, dawn and dusk are producing the best catches.
12. Winter flounder fishing is reportedly pretty good in the Charlestown Salt Pond up at the narrows. Ronnie caught three himself on Tuesday and a customer caught four. He also measured a 16.5-incher this week as well.
13. Captain Don of Captain Don’s Tackle, Charlestown reported that anglers did well on winter flounder in Charlestown Salt Pond with one nice “snowshoe” that he saw, plus three keepers. Chris Blair caught some nice flats up in Potter Pond. The anglers fishing Pawcatuck River steadily are not doing anything on flounder for some reason, while the salt ponds seem to at least be holding fish for those who know what they are doing.
14. The West Wall is holding schoolie bass. One angler had just one fish roll while he was casting from the breachway at Quonny Pond, but it’s not crazy yet in the surf. Things are just starting.
15. John Antori, the 80-plus-year-old maker of Anco Lures, is making a version of the amber Reverse Atom Popper called the Golden Squid that is a killer on stripers when the squid come a couple of weeks from now. Captain Don said the bass will crawl out of water to eat this particular lure.
16. Freshwater fishing has been hot in Watchaug Pond with all the campers doing particularly well on calico bass the past week while this species is spawning around the near-shore structure.
17. Cheryl Al Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said they just opened up on Friday so they don’t have much in the way of fish stories yet. Al Fee took a poke around the Mystic River area looking to see what was going on and said he had temperatures inside the train bridge that were up to 58 degrees F. Too warm for winter flounder but perfect for any stripers that move into the area. So far not much is happening around Mystic, but with river temps that high already, it won’t be long before the bass start popping up in the river and its shoals.
18. Jack Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames said the Greenville Dam and major coves along the river course have been hot after dark around the top of the tide each day.
19. I have been fishing at dusk all week with my Salmo and Polish Perch lures. These lures look just like the herring we can no longer use for bait here in Connecticut, and I expect to catch some monsters on them but haven’t yet in four evenings of fishing. Each time, I couldn’t reach the right zone because other anglers were on the hot spot. I managed to take a 27- to 28-incher each trip but on Fin-S Fish and other soft plastics. The hot lure has been poppers, with the yellow pencil poppers accounting for the majority of the larger fish I saw caught. Tuesday, I brought my wife down to the dam with me to take some photos. About dark, the bugs got to her so I left prematurely. Wednesday when I called for information to do this report, Jack Balint said one customer claimed to have caught a bunch of 30- to 40-forty inch bass on surface lures between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m., just after I left. On the following morning around first light and the incoming tide, another group of fishermen took fish to about 15 pounds on the Polish lures and soft plastics in Poquetanuck Cove. Everything is perfect for the weekend with high tide after dark and a full moon. “This will be the weekend that was,” in the upper Thames River, according to Captain Jack.
20. Trout fishing has been good in the Shetucket River. Customers have been very happy with the quality of their catches, and the fish have been averaging 12 to15 inches. There will be a fresh stocking later this week, so the great action should remain steady.
21. Lou Bull at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said the winter flounder finally showed up at Jordan Cove, but not inside the bridge where the first catches usually come from, but rather outside by the boat launch. One other angler caught a few winter flounder off Harkness Park. One of the kids who lives on the bay said he caught some small flounder off the back bay of the Niantic River near Oswegatchie Road and Sandy Point. Lou himself said he went to try for flatfish at Avery Point for an hour around the top of the tide earlier in the week and didn’t get so much as a sniff.
22. Stripers are beginning to move throughout the region, as an angler who works at Hillyer’s caught some bass one evening this week off the pier on the lower Connecticut River. I made a trip to Hamburg Cove on Saturday and found it full of uncooperative school bass. They looked like the late-winter fish in the Thames, five feet thick on the bottom and one fish per hundred casts.
23. A couple of anglers have seen small bass off the mouth of the Niantic River on an outgoing tide earlier this week, as well. It looks like there is more bass action in general than could be supported strictly by holdover fish that have become active. It is hard to tell if these are local overwintering fish or fresh-run bass moving out of the Hudson River, but increased activity to the west makes it look like the first of the migrants are on the move with all this hot weather.
24. “Q” of River’s End, Saybrook said there are a pile of what he thinks are fresh-run fish in the lower river with most under 28 inches. The Causeway, the DEP Dock and the Woodlot are all producing fish on worms from shore and soft plastics from boats.
25. Hamburg Cove has slowed down to nothing in the form of white perch reports. In fact, the white perch never materialized this spring to speak of, there was only a short flurry of anglers saying they could see the schools but had trouble getting fish to hit, then they seemed to disappear. Maybe the best is yet to come, but my guess is it’s pretty well over for this spring in the white perch department.
26. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison reported that over the weekend there was some great trout action in the spots around Madison. All the local places held good catches with the water levels dropping. The Opening Day contest winner was under two pounds, though some nice fish did come in that were not entered in the Opening Day pre-registration event he held.
27. There are some more small bass running up and down the coast in most of the rivers that Captain Morgan feels could well be the first migrants into his area. This is an observation that seems to fit with the sudden increase in school bass catches pretty much across the board along the Connecticut and Rhody shorelines.
28. Flatfishing is still producing around the Madison, Guilford, Branford area in the harbors and bays. No great catches, but those who know the spots are picking up enough fish for a meal or two per outing.
29. Blackfish are being caught around the New Haven Breakwall and hitting soft stuff like clams and worms. This is the only area where blackfish were actually caught and not expected to be caught for this week’s report.
30. Chris Fulton owner of Stratford Bait & Tackle, Stratford told us that things are livening up a tad in the Housatonic River and vicinity. Anglers are catching and releasing many small bass up inside the river, as well as in the Bridgeport area, just further evidence that something is going on in the way of migratory fish out of the Hudson River. Chris also heard of a few blackfish being taken in New Haven on clams.
31. Freshwater catches dominated the talk this weekend with a huge trout of more than 8 pounds taken on a crawler with no weight, and a 5-plus-pounder that took a mealworm. Both fish were caught from the Poquonnock River in Bridgeport. The kid who caught the larger fish told Chris he saw the lunker on Sunday. Rather than spook the fish, he went back at 5 a.m. on Tuesday and caught it on the first cast, using a whole night crawler that he drifted past the fallen tree where the fish was hiding.
32. Squantz Pond produced a decent catch consisting of a 4.5-pound largemouth bass, three smallies to 3.2 pounds and a 3.6-pound walleye. The kicker was the walleye lost because it wouldn’t fit in the small trout net. The fish was in the 10-pound range. All the bass hit on white spinnerbaits and the walleyes fed on big shiners.
33. Bert of Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said they are seeing a few more flounder since last week. Over last weekend the fishing was very good. Three anglers took 14 flatfish from the Calf Pasture Pier. Fishermen have also been catching small striped bass off Calf Pasture Beach, as well, early and late in the day. Bert said he thinks these stripers are the early runners out of the Hudson River because they showed up in relative force and so suddenly over the past few days.
34. It’s all happening and improving with every warm day and degree of heat dissipated into the waters. Striped bass are on the move, so the Thames River, though probably the best bet for action, is not the only place to catch schoolie bass. The Connecticut, Housatonic, Pawcatuck, Green and Narrow rivers all made the list of school bass producers over the past week.