On The Water 6/16/05

1. Last week’s heat wave definitely raised water temperatures throughout the area, pretty much killing what was left of trout fishing inland. In major rivers it’s been pushing the temperatures to uncomfortable levels for striped bass and the anadromous species that were around spawning in places like the Connecticut River. Worm spawns also seem to be slowing down in the salt ponds at this point, but the fishing is still holding up as bluefish and hickory shad move in to take advantage of the warmer waters to be found in these sorts of places. Bluefish action has picked up across the board, while fluking is still spotty to poor or at best disappointing, all the way down the coast from Newport to Norwalk. However, the area’s striper fishermen don’t seem to be complaining. The bass fishing appears to be holding up or improving in most areas, as migratory stripers continue to push through the region. This week the two extremes of this report, Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island and the Connecticut / New York border in western Long Island Sound, appear to be holding the greatest concentrations of 20-pound-plus stripers for the moment.
2. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said she’s been hearing nothing but complaints about draggers off Misquamicut, especially from her customers who go out and don’t catch what they expect they should be catching at this time of year. Fluke fishing has been slow throughout the region, with anglers catching mostly throwbacks wherever they are fluking. Throwbacks are not exactly a bad thing because they are the future of the fishery, but they do become tiresome if that’s all you are catching. One angler said that he caught 50 fluke, five of which were keepers. That’s a pretty action-packed outing for any species, so even though the ratio of keepers to shorts is kind of high, I’d take that many fish any time. Saturday, one group caught a 5-pounder off the beaches, but all the others they hooked were short. In other words, if you go fluke fishing, bring plenty of bait and expect to do some culling to catch a few keepers for the freezer.
3. I’ve discovered over the years that an abundance of short fish usually means more missed hooksets. There was a time when missing fish, whether they were stripers or fluke, would get me frustrated. However, most of the time it simply meant that the fish being dropped were too small to handle the baits and hook sizes being used, and in the case of fluke, I’d rather not hook and have to release a sublegal fish in the first place. Keeper fluke of 17.5 inches will have no problem inhaling a typical 3/0 or larger hook that’s loaded with bait. When that big guy comes along, it will have no trouble taking even a very large bait. It appears that fluking will be more of a waiting game this year than it has been in the past. But also be aware that among those shorts are some real big doormats to be had and they are worth waiting for.
4. Blues are popping up all over the place as they begin moving inshore from their spawning grounds offshore. These fish are averaging four to five pounds, with some fish weighing 10.
5. In The Race, diamond jigs and three-way rigs with bucktails or eels are consistently producing bass down deep, especially after dark. Closer near-shore reefs and rock piles such as Watch Hill, Sugar Reef and Ram Island Reef have been producing stripers from medium schoolies down, for anglers tossing poppers, soft plastics and swimming lures. One batch of stripers taken around the Mystic area were those tiny little foot-long and smaller fish that dominated the early spring action in the Thames this past winter and spring. The stripers are said to be full of squid and herring. Eels after dark in these same areas are much more likely to catch larger fish.
6. Rennie of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames said things have slowed a good deal lately in the river as water temperatures have risen into the low 70s in the shallows. For some reason, possibly the oppressive heat, there haven’t been many reports coming in about either bass or fluke fishing. Rennie fished Stonington Harbor on Monday, saw fish swirling near the surface on something small, but only managed to take a single 24-incher. Captain Jack Balint said the fishing has been on the slow side lately in the waters from Watch Hill to the Gull Islands that he’s been working with his clients. After our fluke trip to Misquamicut on Saturday, we tube-and-worm trolled a few spots on the protected inside of Fishers Island and caught only six schoolies that maxed out at about 26 inches. I suspect that if we fished until dark, the size range would have expanded some, but a serious fog bank began descending around 6 p.m., so we ran home like little cowards.
7. Fluke fishing has been slow off Fishers Island and the south shore beaches. No one came in bragging from any place since the last report, not even those who burned the gas to get to Montauk Point. Montauk continues to generate the best fluke success reports in the region, but even a percentage of the anglers who make the commitment are not doing all that well.
8. Freshwater fishing action has slowed tremendously for trout with rapidly rising water temperatures. River levels are low and temperatures high, which quickly switches trout fishing over to that summertime pattern of tiny flies fished early and late in the day. Anglers catching trout in warm waters must be aware that even released fish may die due to the lactic acid buildup caused by exertion in hot water, so serious catch-and-release anglers often choose to chase other species or refrain from targeting trout until fall when water temperatures come back down. There has not been much in the way of bass or walleye reports coming into the shop lately, either. I know anglers are out, but either they are not talking about their catches or they are not doing very well. Largemouths are in their postspawn pattern and should be recovered enough to put on the feedbag for that good early summer surface bite that takes place late in June most years.
9. Matt at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said the fluke fishing is better than last week but still not meeting the expectations of local fishermen for this point in the year. He said that depending on whom you talk to, reports range from good to lousy. Montauk Point is the most consistent place to catch fluke, but nowhere seems to be red-hot all the time this season. It’s been hit and miss pretty much everywhere. Seven out of ten anglers are having difficulty catching their limits, and the other three have been lucky, according to Matt. In other words, those who hit the right place at the right time and tide are doing well; in-between it can be a slow pick.
10. Blackfishing opened up on Wednesday, June 15 and a few people were taking them between the bridges, but none were big enough to bring to the scales at the shop.
11. Bass fishing has been good but not as good as it should be this time of year. The boats fishing deep in The Race, especially after dark, are connecting with 20- to 30-pound-class stripers on a regular basis. However, places such as Black Point and Bartlett Reef, although holding fish, are not red-hot like they normally are at this time. Bear in mind this has been far from a typical year as far as weather and temperature are concerned.
12. Bluefish are all over the place. Earlier in the week, Plum Gut was loaded from top to bottom with them. These are the fish that will break up and assault all the inshore reefs and beaches over the next few weeks.
13. Pat Abate of River’s End Tackle, Saybrook said the river has been good to very good fishing lately, with top-end fish up to 40 inches and an occasional bluefish coming in out of nowhere to puree one’s Slug-Gos. He said that during his last trip, the bass were swirling and reluctant to hit the larger offerings but readily inhaled 6-inch Slug-Gos when they were cast to them. Ebb tide is the best time to fish the lower Connecticut River.
14. I suspect that the warm temps last week are partially responsible for the improved bass fishing in the lower river, as these fish head to the ocean to avoid water temperature levels that were uncomfortable and approaching dangerous.
15. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison told us he’s seeing more fluke lately but still no doormats coming through his door. The bottom line is there are more fluke around to catch off the local beaches. Water temperatures in this part of the Sound are in the low to mid-60s since the heat wave.
16. Stripers are hitting well, but no real heavy fish have been taken. Top-end bass this week have been under 40 inches, with fish coming in off the rocks from shore, as well as from the offshore rock piles and reefs.
17. Bluefish are all over the place and hitting well off Southwest Reef and Kimberly Reef, as well. Again, there are no major-league choppers around, but the 3- to 5-pounders anglers are catching are fun on light tackle and fly-fishing equipment.
18. Despite the recent rise in inshore water temperatures, the captain said he is still seeing winter flounder being caught from local river channels and mouths. These fish are coming in around the top of the tide, biting for an hour or so and suddenly leaving. He said that it is a short window of opportunity around the top of the tide that a few local sharpies are taking advantage of. They come in, bite, and then they are gone. If you don’t have a chum pot set at the right point in the tide, it’s like these fish never existed.
    Blackfish opened Wednesday, but no one brought any in to the scales as of this report. Being that the best of the blackfish season took place while the season was closed, most anglers are now targeting bass and fluke and only taking the blackfish they catch incidentally.
19. Locally, a few anglers in the know are taking sand sharks in the Thimble Islands. The captain said that every summer these hard-core shark fishermen consistently catch a few small blue sharks and even an occasional brown shark by chumming and chunking through the night in specific areas south of the Thimble Islands.
20. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford said that, “Not a hell of a lot has been going on” down in his neck of the woods. It seems like they are between the biggest concentrations of bait at the present time. Bass seem to be out in deeper waters off the mouth of the Housatonic River.
    No weakfish for two or three weeks. Fluking has been mediocre, with a few fluke coming in from the mouth of the river, Charles Island and around the New Haven breakwalls. He noted that the trouble is no consistency in catches because the bait is moving around and not holding in one area long enough to set a consistent pattern that anglers can follow. He used an example of how one guy took four 5-pounders one day off the West Haven Breakwall, and the very next day, a couple of anglers who know the area and how to fish it didn’t catch a single fluke.
21. Charles Island produced two bass one night around its entire perimeter, while the following night one customer sat in one spot and caught six or eight fish. It’s like that, Chris noted, one day it’s slow, next night the fishermen kill them.
22. My guess is that this could be due to the movement of fish through the area in slugs. The inconsistency could also be due to the heat that has overtaken the area lately, heat that will move bait and predatory fish out of some areas just like it will people.
23. Nick Mola of Fisherman’s World, Norwalk reported that there are tons of bunker off Rye and Maroneck to Hempsted, New York with some bigger bass feeding on them. There have been a few of these bunker and the stripers are spilling over into the Norwalk area around Greens Ledge and other local spots. But things are just shaping up for some major bunker/bass blitzes. The fish are still migrating, but nothing has settled in so far.
24. Blues in the 2- to 5-pound size range are on top off Smithtown Bay, as well as around the Norwalk Islands and off Calf Pasture Point. Some bigger blues are naturally being caught underneath those same stripers, holding bunker schools to the west.
25. Fluke fishing is still better across the Sound off Sunken Meadow, Port Jefferson and the Golf Course. These spots are all producing fluke but at a slow pick. Seven- and eight-pounders have been the largest fluke he’s seen since they showed up three weeks ago, which is nothing to get excited over. It’s been such a screwy spring that all we can really do is sit and wait to see what happens next.
26. The positive thing is that the good early summer fishing is just beginning. This week expect fluke fishing to continue to pick up on all fronts, and begin looking for and expecting to hear of giant stripers caught off Block Island, Montauk Point and along the Rhody Coast and the south side of Fishers Island.