On The Water, Bob Sampson, Jr.

1. It’s the first full week in May and things are starting to progress, as they well should by this point on the calendar. As has been the case for the past few years, there have been a few catches of winter flounder reported in western Long Island Sound, west of the Housatonic River and from Rhode Island’s salt ponds and major rivers, but in between is a dead zone.
2. Striper catches have been improving in both number and quality throughout most of the region, with some indications that fish are on the move into this area from Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River, based on sudden increases in size and numbers of fish in places that were nearly dead last week. Anglers fishing between the Connecticut River and Stonington reported fish in the mid-30-inch range consistently, an indication that at least a pulse of larger fish has made its way across the Sound from Montauk Point. Over in the western end of this territory, Point Judith Salt Pond, the south shore beaches and Narragansett Bay out to Newport all reported at least rumors of larger fish, as well.
3. Across the board, everyone is talking about tons of “dinker” fish in areas of the Thames where I have seen caught or heard about from reliable sources at least 600 stripers – 60 to 70 percent are under 14 inches and the rest have been less than 26!
4. Fun fish, a good sign for the future that two years back there was a heck of a breeding somewhere, but nothing to brag about for at least a decade. Colt State Park has turned on up in the bay, which indicates the bass are pushing up there. This year, Peter has seen smaller fish than he’s ever seen, which means he has probably caught some of the 9- to 10-inchers I’ve taken to his south, but he is also catching good numbers of stripers running over 20 inches but under the 28-inch keeper-size minimum.
5. Peter noted that he heard an interesting but unverified report of a 43-pounder that was caught from the Sakonnet River earlier in the week. Reports like this sometimes get their inches and pounds mixed up as they circulate among anglers, but unless this one was totally fabricated, it sounds like someone had a very pleasant early season surprise. To date, the largest fish I have heard of from this reporting area were 30 to 35 pounds, and they were caught two or three weeks ago from the Thames River when the buckeys first showed up.
6. Lambert’s Cove in Stonington has been full of small bass that are smacking little poppers. There are also a ton of fish inside the Pawcatuck River up to the launch ramp. Weekapaug Beach has also been producing a few stripers for Doug Gent on small jigs. No blackfish quite yet, still too cold. When they show up it’s possible to see them cruising around the rocks from the bridge.
7. Last week, the squid showed in Newport off the causeway, and this week Captain Don saw them up in Quonny Pond, which means there are probably fluke down below them, feeding. Normally, the fluke are present as soon as the squid are reported, but usually, like now, not many anglers are thinking about fluke, they tend to be more “striper brained” this time in the season. Early fluke fishing can be a slow pick because the fish will be spread out and clumped in distribution, but when you find them, the fishing can be excellent with quality fish for the most part. The tiny stuff doesn’t move in or grow to catchable size until later in the summer.
8. Cheryl and Al Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said that Al caught 8 stripers up to 34 inches Wednesday morning before work from the Mystic River, near Six Penny Island, and said there were fish all over off Mason’s Island, with all the action taking place during the outgoing tide. A few people from Shaffer’s Marina who have their boats in the water made the long run to Montauk Point last weekend to take part in the New York opener. They weren’t real happy, however, with the three or four fish per boat they brought home and the painfully big fuel prices they paid to do it.
9. Captain Jack Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames has been seeing loads of tiny stripers being caught and reported from top to bottom in the Thames River. I fished on Friday with some of my science students in an effort to place 100 Littoral Society Tags as part of a project we do every spring and fall in the Thames. We tagged 61 fish out of the 90 we caught. The other 29 fish were too small – under a foot – to stick with the needle. The majority of the stripers we caught were between 12 and 14 inches with the largest fish of the day a mere 22-incher.
10. This has been the story on the Thames River lately, lots of fish but of very small proportions. Jack told us he’s not heard of any fish lately but figures they are still in the river because the alewives are still running. The tides and weather have been wrong for a trip to the Thames during the day, making it more difficult for anglers to be successful. That means that things will straighten out for the upcoming Thames River Striped Bass Tournament, which will be held this Saturday, May 7 on the Thames River. Anyone interested in registering can do so up until 6 p.m. Friday, May 6, when the Captain’s Meeting begins at The Americas on the Wharf Marina in Norwich Harbor. There are entry forms available at Thayer’s Marina, Norwich; The Fish Connection, Preston; and The Dime Bank; Norwich. Or you can contact the Chamber of Commerce, PO Box 726 Gales Ferry, CT 06335.
11. Richard at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said there have been improvements this week on the general fishing scene, primarily in the striper fishing category. Loads of schoolies are present and biting well in the mouth of the Connecticut and Niantic rivers. One customer said they caught a 30-pounder and a couple of 15-pounders off Groton Long Point this week, which jives with the sudden appearance of 30-inchers a short distance east in the Mystic River. These are the first bigger fish other than Al Fee’s catch up inside the Mystic River that have been reported outside of the Thames River so far this spring, so it seems things are running ahead of the delayed season we experienced in this region in 2004.
12. These larger stripers are either fish leaving the Thames, or they may be some of the first migrants moving along the coast from the Hudson River. They could also be early Chesapeake fish that moved straight across the Sound into the Mystic area on an incoming tide when they rounded the corner at Montauk Point. I know they do this based on a tag return I caught six or eight years ago. It was mid-May and I was fishing the Mystic River and catching a ton of fish that were stacked like cordwood in the channel between Mason and Ram Islands. I caught a tagged fish and figured it had been marked by my friend, Captain Al Anderson over in the Thames. Al has put thousands of Littoral Society Tags into the wintering Thames River bass over the past five or six years, and nearly every tagged fish I catch is from him. The tag was one of Al’s, but it was not a fish that had moved out of the Thames. It was a fish Captain Anderson had tagged and released two days earlier during one of his charter trips to Montauk Point!
13. That fish was obviously a migrant from the south. That it made its way to the Mystic River so quickly was probably due to the fact it had been tagged during a flood tide, which could possibly carry the school inside Montauk to The Race, then through The Race and into the Sound. There it picked up on temperatures, bait or something else to make it end up in the lower Mystic River.
14. Mark Lewchik of River’s End, Saybrook said there were a few more bass and bigger fish (in the three-foot range) caught on soft plastics from the lower Connecticut River this week. One angler caught a keeper bass in the upper Eight Mile River that was full of stocked trout; I’ve always felt that trout made great forage for real fish like bass, pike and, yes, even stripers.
15. Like at Shaffer’s, Mark said the few customers who made the run to Montauk last weekend were disappointed. He noted that reports indicated that commercial draggers have been working hard off Montauk Point, a sad fact that could be a major contributing factor to the generally poor catches reported by those who made the run to the point for fluke this weekend.
16. Captain Jerry Morgan, of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said that in between the wind, rain and cold there were still some reports of customers catching small bass, with larger fish trickling in. He heard of the first weakfish of the season and even a couple of fluke. The fluke were small and caught from the rocks near tidal creeks, and all were nearly keepers. The weakfish have come from south of Falkner, mid-Sound and in West Haven, but only a couple reports so far – he hasn’t seen a body yet.
17. The big thing is people are targeting stripers and taking fish all over the place, nothing big quite yet, but fishing is consistent in all the rivers with catches along the coast becoming more consistent with every passing tide.
18. Trout fishing is doing well, as flooding water levels subside for the second time since the season started. Captain Morgan mentioned that there has been a rumor going around, actually for years, that it is illegal to use corn for trout in this state. This rumor is not true; it is legal to use it as bait for trout here in Connecticut. Same thing for Rhode Island – corn is O.K. to use as bait for trout.
19. Chris Fulton owner of Stratford B&T, Stratford said there are, like elsewhere in the region, tons of small – actually dinky – stripers all over and up inside the Housatonic River. A few larger bass, one a 13-pounder, was caught from the Housatonic by Patrick Charn over the weekend. Bob Litzy caught a beautiful, 2-pound-plus winter flounder off the mouth of the Housatonic earlier in the week, but that was about it in the flounder department. Flatfish catches have been like this one all season so far, the fish are of high quality, but are few and far between.
20. Most of the action and catches this week have come from freshwater areas due to the inclement weather factor. Brett Miklos caught a 2-pound-plus brown trout from the Poquonnock River. Steve Dunn caught brown trout of 3.4 and 3.7 pounds from the Saugatuck Reservoir on a Crocodile Spoon. Steve is the “king of the Res” and is single-handedly responsible for generating many of the big trout and walleye reports that come out of this top-quality body of water. He’s a painter, so he gets to fish during “prime time,” when the weather is bad and pressure is dropping. The wind has been a factor lately on the Sound, so reports have been minimal and mostly from the river where it’s a little more protected.
21. Nick Mola of Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said his customers have been catching loads of schoolies off Calf Pasture Point but few keeper-size fish. There appears to have been a recent movement of stripers into the region – large numbers of fish off the pier and around the islands in general have suddenly showed up. The mouth of the Housatonic has also picked up recently, as well, which is usually an indication that something is happening in the western Sound.
22. Flounder action picked up off the Calf Pasture Pier, too, from fish running up to about 2 pounds, with 20 inches, which is about 3 pounds of flatfish being the largest so far this season. Last year, Nick reported a number of 3-pound-or-better flounder, but those catches took place during the warming weather of middle and late May, long after other parts of the region reported their last flounder catches.
23. It looks like this week, especially if things get warmer, could bring more action from stripers throughout the region, with large fish apparently moving in. In Rhode Island, look for the salt ponds to produce their first minor worm spawn activity if their protected areas warm up to 65 degrees F. There are some bass around to play with, so once the worms come out, unless temperatures plummet like they did in 2004, the spawn fishing should start off pretty well.
24. Don’t waste your time on winter flounder, but instead launch to fish the Point Judith area of Rhode Island and maybe the south shore near Quonny Pond, which is holding some squid, and try for fluke. If the fluke don’t cooperate you can count on bass to be hammering the squid wherever they are holding.