On The Water 6/23/05

1. This week, reports indicate improvement in the overall fluke fishing scene, although pretty much across the board everyone is saying the catches are generally a disappointment. Striper action from those larger late-run bass appears to have suddenly come to life in the areas around the perimeter of Block Island Sound and the island itself, with shops in this area pretty much all weighing in or hearing of fish in the 40- to 50- pound range since the weekend. Bluefish are increasing in abundance and appear to be of medium to small average sizes, although there are some 8- and 10-pounders to be caught. Scup season doesn’t open for another week, but these little bait stealers are starting to interfere with anglers targeting fluke in some areas. No one is complaining, other than the fluke meisters who are working way too hard to catch a few keepers no matter where they are making their drifts.
2. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said her customers have been complaining about high numbers of bluefish getting in the way of the stripers they are targeting. The anglers fishing close to the river are catching striped bass on squid imitations like Slug-Gos and Hydro Squirts. Those who know the spots are catching and releasing 20 to 30 fish per night, but not many of these fish are much over 28 to 30 inches. Those who are traveling to fish the Watch Hill/Fishers Island Reef complex are reporting catching lots of bass by trolling with bucktails or plugs. So far this season, there have not been many really big fish brought back to the docks.
3. Lots of throwback fluke off Misquamicut and Isabella Beach at Fishers Island lately. Cheryl said that two small boats that fished locally at spots in and around the Mystic River did better than those who burned the gas to hit Rhode Island or Montauk. One caught something like seven keepers, along with a few porgies and skate. Porgies are starting to show and get in the way of the fluke, which means anglers are busy all day catching something, which is not all bad.
4. The scup season opens July 1, and it looks like another banner scup year is in the offing for local fishermen.
5. Rennie of The Fish Connection, Preston said the fishing on the Thames has been slow since the heat wave two weeks ago. Anglers are taking some scattered bluefish and small stripers, but overall the river has been quiet.
6. He said that a few customers have been out looking for blue crabs but not finding them. No one has so much as seen a crab in the Thames so far this year, but one guy said he saw some over at Bluff Point.
7. Jack Balint said he fished everywhere from Watch Hill to The Race with a couple of his fishermen and caught over two dozen bass to about 32 inches, along with a bunch of small bluefish. They did some casting in key spots, but most of their catch was made on tube and worms. He said that in a couple of areas the bluefish were so thick he had to leave to save baits and lures. These blues are averaging about five pounds. The bite from the larger stripers has generally been a night bite due to the full moon, summer solstice and all that sort of stuff.
8. Fluke fishing is getting better with each change of the tide, but it is still a good deal slower than normal for this point on the calendar. Jack said that a couple guys went to Montauk and only landed five keeper fish, saying they could have done as well locally and saved a bunch of gas and a long bumpy boat ride. Jack mentioned that one reason he thinks the fluke catches have been so poor lately is the fact that, much of the time, the winds have been against the tides. Plus, surface temperatures are still chilly, only in the 57- to 59-degree range. He said that most years the surface temperatures are 62 to 65 degrees by this time.
9. One positive note is that Jack said he’s been seeing acres of sand eels in spots like the outside Fishers, around Napatree Point and off Watch Hill Reef. This abundant forage will attract and hold bass, fluke and bluefish, especially if water temperatures remain cool like they have been.
10. John at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said the best fluke-catching area their customers have been talking about has been off Misquamicut Beach. Isabella is so, so, and Montauk Point is not the hot spot it was a couple of weeks ago. Locally, Two Tree Channel, Niantic Bay itself and Black Point are producing more fish. So far, not many big ones – the best was an 8-pound-plus fluke that was caught from Niantic Bay by Tom Scarzynski.
11. Striper catches have been good in The Race, Hatchet Reef and Bartlett Reef. Tube and worms, three-way bucktails and umbrella-rig trolling have been accounting for the majority of the large stripers being reported. In addition to the large bass, there are schoolies all over the place around Harkness Park, up inside the Niantic River, off Black Point, Millstone Point and over along the mouth of the Thames.
12. Bluefish action is picking up nicely. It looks like it is going to be another banner year for bluefish, like last year. Last season, those blues were in two distinct size groups: 1.5 to 3 pounds, and 4 to 6 pounds. However, with a year of growth on them, there will be more bluefish of 8 pounds or better, plus a good number of 2- to 6-pounders. The Millstone discharge has been full of blues and schoolie bass lately.
13. The Race has also been producing bluefish on a regular basis.
14. Blackfishing is fair, but remember that the prime time of spring fishing when they come inshore to spawn is pretty well over. Hillyer’s has weighed in some decent blackfish since the season opened on the 15th. The best was a beautiful 11.5-pounder that was caught between the bridges on a sand worm. John also recommended trying the rocks out at Black Point and Sara’s Ledge for blackfish.
15. “Q” of River’s End, Saybrook said fishing is very slow in the lower river, with only a few small bass and bluefish biting early and late in the day. Plum Gut has been producing blues, along with a slow pick for bass, both there and in The Race.
16. Overall, fluke fishing has been a disappointment. “Q” said the fluking locally is as good as anywhere at the present time. There are a few fish being caught from the lower Connecticut River and east to Sound View. Across the Sound, The Ruins has been O.K. but nothing special. No place is really hot for this species, so anglers are better off saving on gas and travel time and working the spots closer to home more thoroughly if fluke is their primary target species. There are tons of skate out there to molest baits when drift speeds become too slow.
17. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said the fluke are finally picking up on this side of the Sound. Nothing special, but catches in closer to the shoreline have improved over the past week. There has been some improvement in the catches of blackfish in both number and size since the season opened. No big tiderunners have been brought in to the scales yet, but he said the catches have been better than last year’s opening week.
18. There is a mix of bluefish of all sizes being reported from all the local reefs and rip lines from Kimberly and Six Mile reefs out to Falkner Island and into New Haven Harbor. Most are medium and small stuff, but there are a few 8-pound or better fish being caught.
19. The striped bass action has waned since last week. He noted that “the bass take some searching” at the moment. Eels after dark is the most productive method for taking large stripers, but they aren’t coming easy like they were a week or so ago. He also noted that he’s been seeing some of those bunker moving into the area from the western part of the Sound that has been full of adult menhaden for a couple of weeks.
20. The captain had an interesting tale to relate. One of his customers was fishing just outside Wicopesset Passage earlier in the week for stripers. He was fishing chunks on wire line in the current and hooked into something big. He and his buddy had either two different fish or possibly the same fish on at the same time and pressured the monster for two hours before it sawed through the wire and got away. The guy said the fish was so big that as they started to chase it with the boat and got right over the top of it, they could not pull it off the bottom.
21. Without a photo or body for proof, it’s hard to speculate as to what it could have been. Usually stray hookups with sharks don’t occur until much later in the summer when temperatures have hit seasonal high levels. Right now it’s not even 60 degrees in the area he was fishing. It was probably a shark of some sort, possibly a dusky or maybe even a thresher that had followed migrating schools of bluefish (a favorite food item) inshore. Who knows what the great fish was, but for sure it was not a tuna or they would have been stripped, or a blue shark or they would have at least seen it in less than an hour with 50-pound-class tackle.
22. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford, said they finally started catching some bigger stripers in the Housatonic River this week. He saw a 20-pounder that was taken on a fresh bunker chunk on Tuesday and two other stripers of 11 and 14 pounds. Much better quality fish than the schoolies that have been caught for the past three weeks. One customer caught stripers of 24 and 29 pounds on a roadtrip to fish the Stonington area over the weekend. It’s not crazy fishing by any means, but Chris said he’s starting to see signs of life in his area that indicate some better fishing is probably not too far off.
23. Chris caught some small blues and bass off Penfield Reef on poppers and bombers the other night. This was the first successful trip he’s had at this reef in a while. He tried fluking on Friday morning but hit heavy winds and seas, so he had to retreat to the protection of the Housatonic and fish for stripers. Unfortunately, those larger fish seemed to have shown up since Sunday, so all he managed was a handful of small schoolies.
24. Fluke fishing has been spotty at best in his area. Charles Island, which was producing a few fish a couple of weeks back, has slowed considerably. New Haven Harbor and the breakwalls have also slowed in their fluke production since last week. Most of the successful fluke fishermen Chris has been talking to are running across the Sound to fish the north shore of Long Island.
25. Bert at Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said they have been catching bass over at Westport, where a school of bunker has been set up since last week. These fish are running up to about 36 inches, with the best one he’s heard of weighing in at 25 pounds. A few customers said they were catching bass in that same size range off Calf Pasture Beach on chunk mackerel over the weekend. Buoys 28“C” and 11“B” continue to produce striped bass in the 15- to 25-pound range on a regular basis, but nowhere near as well as the area around Rye, New York, just across the border. That big slug of bass Nick Mola has been talking about for the past two weeks are still hung up in that area and feeding heavily on menhaden. These fish are feeding on adult bunker that normally move through fairly rapidly when pushed by stripers like this, but for some reason, they are stuck a long boat ride from the anglers in Norwalk who patiently await their arrival. Locally, around the islands, fishermen are catching a few large fish, but the mass of big bass is to the west, where anglers will catch four to five fish over 30 pounds per trip. Trolling with tube and worms has been a very good method for taking bass up into the 20-pound range around the islands, but that’s nothing compared to the action fishermen will enjoy if – or, hopefully, when – those bunker move into the islands.
26. Fluke have been caught off the Norwalk Islands, but there have not been very many of them and they have not been of notable size. The best catches are still being made off Mattituck, the golf course and other places across the Sound, along the north shore of Long Island.
27. With temperatures rising and fish on the move, it looks like the best fishing this weekend will be west of Norwalk for big stripers. In the eastern end of the Sound, try fishing the reefs and rock piles from Niantic Bay to Point Judith, with the waters out around Block Island and the south shore beaches being the most likely places to tie into a 50-pounder. The Rhode Island Beaches and Block Island appear to be holding the most fluke, but at best, anglers everywhere are working hard to take a limit or near limit of keeper-size fish.
28. Tides will be slowing down as we get farther away from the June moon, so it will be easier to deal with current speeds whether you are fluke or striper fishing. Concentrate efforts after dark for the big bass and in shallower waters for fluke. The best one this week came from only 40 feet, but don’t hesitate to move around in order to find the depth where the fluke are most active..