Norwich Bulletin - Fishing Report

• What we and other holiday-weekend fishermen can expect is good striped bass action around any reef, rip line or rock pile. Catching 10- to 30-pound fish is not out of the question this weekend, especially deep in the Race or around rocky areas after dark.
• Bluefish will be thicker in the major deep waters of the Race and Plum Gut, but are likely to be mixed with the bass. The gut was reportedly full with bluefish last week and the Race has been producing bluefish consistently for two weeks now.
• Fluke fishing has been a major disappointment so far this spring. The best place is Montauk Point. But even there, fishing -- or rather catching -- has not been consistent.
• Most of the fluke on this side of the Sound are shorts. There have been some very large fluke -- up to 10 pounds -- caught off Misquamicut but they are few and far between.
• One report from that area indicated that two anglers caught 50 fluke last week, but only five of them were 1 1/2-inch keepers. Last Saturday, my son, Jared, and his girlfriend, Julie Feeney, and I managed to land only 10 fluke with three keepers in about four hours of bouncing on some riled waters of Misquamicut.
• The worm spawn event over at Ninigret and the other salt ponds across the border are pretty well shot for this season. Look for the bass that had been inshore and feeding in such places, or up inside major rivers such as the Connecticut and Thames rivers, to be feeding either lower in major rivers or outside the river mouths on squid near reefs.
• The Watch Hill Reef Complex, Bartlett Reef, Black Point, Ram Island Reef, and other likely spots are holding some bass in the 15- to 30-pound range, but those 50 pounders that come through every summer are not here yet.