On The Water, 6/30/05

1. This week a combination of fog, wind and heat, plus the earlier moon tides that were strong enough to hamper some anglers, have combined to hamper angler participation further. Those who have ventured out have been giving mixed reviews ranging from disappointment to bragging. Dense fog has been the clincher, keeping many would-be anglers at the dock, which means fewer reports for columns like this.
   
2. Keeping this in mind, with a few exceptions, it looks again like the best fishing is taking place at the two extremes of this reporting area from Charleston, Rhode Island, east to Narragansett and from Madison, west to Norwalk. In-between reports have ranged from improving to poor fishing for bass and fluke. Bluefish are everywhere and they are small, just like last season. As of July 1, the Connecticut scup (porgy) season opens, which adds another species to the menu for sport fishermen to enjoy.
3. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer�s Marina, Mystic said her customers have reported excellent fluking off Misquamicut lately, but nothing much inside the Sound. On Friday, they weighed fluke of 6.5, 7 and 7.5 pounds that were caught off the south shore beaches over the weekend by various anglers. With the 17.5-inch limit, they are picking through four or five short, but not small, fluke for each keeper. Of the 11 we caught Tuesday, not a single one was of legal size, but three were over 17 inches.
4. Stripers were caught off the reefs between Watch Hill and Fishers Island, but no real big numbers or high-quality fish lately. One regular at the marina said he caught eight fish to low-end keeper size off Sugar Reef on tube-and-worm rigs early in the week. Little blues were all over the place and getting in the way of would-be-caught bass.
   On my way out to Misquamicut on Tuesday, we saw terns working over 1- to 2-pound cocktail blues everywhere from the mouth of the Pawcatuck River, Little Narragansett Bay and the Watch Hill Reef Complex to along the beaches and on the south side and inside of Fishers. They�re everywhere!
5. Captain Jack Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames said the fishing has been dismal in most of the places he�s been taking his charters lately. There are bass here and there, but with the light-tackle clientele he specializes in, they have had to work much too hard for a few scattered bass. There have been a few bass in the 40-inch range around the island lately but not with any real consistency.
   
6. He also reported tons of tiny blues all over the place around Fishers Island. And there are lots of blues in the Thames River that are much larger than the �dinks� being caught outside. The fish in the Thames are averaging 5 to 8 pounds, while those outside are in the 1- to 2-pound range.
   Fluke fishing has been so-so lately. His dad Joe and Dennis who works at the shop have been catching fluke but working hard for the fish they are taking. Paul Weeks caught a 9- pound fluke off Mystic the other day, the biggest they�ve had in the shop so far this season.
7. Shane at Hillyer�s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said that striper fishing has been very good.
8. The Race has been the hot spot and has consistently been producing fish in the 40-inch-plus range on bucktails and live eels fished deep after sunset or early in the morning, depending on the tides. Bartlett and Hatchet Reefs are also holding decent fish, but not in the abundance being reported from the riled waters of The Race. There are schoolie bass around the rocks at Black Point, in the Niantic River, lower Connecticut River and lower Thames, as well as in the Millstone Point discharge.
   
9. This year, Hillyer�s �company trip� to The Race produced two fish over 40 inches, with the dozen anglers each catching a keeper or two, plus some smaller bass and blues. A good time was had by all. Last week, Fred Douglas caught a 38-pounder on an eel off Bartlett Reef � the biggest striper brought in lately to the scales at Hillyer�s.
   
10. Bluefish action has been very good for small blues in Niantic Bay and around the Millstone Outflow, with some larger choppers up to 10 pounds being taken from The Race by anglers fishing deep with diamond jigs, Baited Drail rigs and bucktails out in The Race and Plum Gut.
    
11. Fluke fishing has improved locally, with Millstone Point and Black Point producing decent fish. The best since last report was an 8-pounder that was caught from Two Tree Channel. Misquamicut has also been producing for their customers, with Isabella off Fishers also accounting for some fish. No one is slaying them, but there have not been many complaints from customers, either.
    
12. Not much from blackfish around local rock piles since the season opened, but no one is really after them right now. Scup season opens on July 1. But due to cool temperatures until recently, there haven�t been many anglers talking of catching scup incidentally while fluke fishing or trolling tubes like they will be later in the summer after they invade the region.
    
13. Q of River's End Tackle, Old Saybrook said the lower river is producing schoolie stripers and small bluefish. The big news this week was a report that came in from Plum Gut. It seems a group of anglers was there fishing deep for bass and blues when they saw a school of huge bass chasing full-size, small keeper fluke to the surface near shore. The fluke were reportedly actually jumping clear out of the water in an effort to escape from the stripers. The fishermen rigged up tube and worms, and trolled through the action, catching around 10 big bass that ranged from 30 to 48 pounds. As Q said, this is a very atypical catch, this crew of anglers was in the right place at the right time and it happened to be right at the bottom of the low slack tide. The fish they kept had fresh, keeper-size fluke in their bellies.
    
14. Think about it, there must not be much around for stripers to be chasing a hard-to-swallow prey like fluke. They are omnivorous and opportunistic. I�ve heard of and seen juvenile flatfish and fluke in striper stomach�s but never heard of them eating legal-size-class fluke. They must have rolled them up like a taco to get them down. An event I'd like to witness with a camera.
    
15. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan�s Tackle, Madison told us that the fog, wind and storms have had a negative effect on business. The best fishing has been mornings for bigger bass. Midsound and offshore reefs such as Six Mile Reef, Southwest Reef, Falkner Island and The Race have all been named as producing decent stripers by his customers over the past week. Fish in the mid-30-inch range were the norm, but a handful of 40- to 50-pounders have been caught. One of the monsters was caught off Long Sand Shoal on an eel after dark, and another was from Southwest Reef.
    
16. Bluefish are all over the place. Mostly small stuff under five pounds, with occasional 10- pounders being hooked, particularly in the rips around the same deep-water reefs and rock piles listed above.
    
17. Fluking has been picking up. Not much in the way of bigger fish, but the numbers are improving. They are being caught by those who are targeting them off places such as Hammonasset Beach. The ratio has been 4 or 5 shorts to each keeper, like elsewhere in the region. Of course, along with the fluke, expect to catch dogfish, sea robins and skate.
    Blackfishing has been good with a great deal more catching going on than last year at this time. No big fish reported. Ten-pounders have been talked about but not brought to the scales.
    
18. Seabass are in spawning around the reefs, with fish to 22 inches and up to 5 pounds being caught in 45 to 75 feet from Long Sand Shoal out around rock piles and bumps on the bottom to mid-Sound.
    
19. Captain Morgan said he�s started seeing blue crabs in the Hammonasset River area. Water temps are in the mid- to high 60s in the Sound and warmer than that in the bays, so it�s summertime and the fishing is easy.
    
20. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford said they finally had a week with some good action on a consistent basis from both bass and blues for the anglers who cast plugs. The action is pretty much all over the place, so it looks like something good has happened since the last report. I suspect the influx of large stripers is due in part to the eastward movement of that large body of big bass that was stalled along the New York/Connecticut border for the past three weeks. There have been some bunker in Bridgeport Harbor which is another reason the bigger bass have moved in. Those fish down in Rye, New York, had the bunker cornered, but with the bait and bass moving, this sort of sudden influx of quality stripers will take place anywhere adult bunker appear along the entire coast.
    
21. Thirty some years ago when I first started writing, the bunker would show up in the Sound by the millions, and they would attract and hold large numbers of both bluefish and jumbo stripers. After bunker were wiped out by the bunker boats, all that easy big bass fishing came to a screeching halt. It�s nice to hope on hope this is the beginning of the return of adult bunker to our waters. If so, we can look forward to fishing like the younger anglers out there have never experienced.
    
22. Chris said that Sunday evening, Ponds Dock on the Housatonic produced a bunch of 30-inch-class keepers for the crew that was tossing plugs and chunk baits. One angler caught a 21-pound striper while fluke fishing off the breakwall on Monday or Tuesday. Charles Island has been producing fish for pluggers and fly-rodders since this recent influx of fish.
    Fluke catches are still so-so but improving. Chris himself took a youngster out fluking by �PJ� Buoy and caught 9 keepers up to 20 inches.
    
23. Luke of Fisherman�s World, Norwalk told us that those big bass that have been holding to the west off Rye, New York, have finally started to move into their area and seem to be pushing the bunker with them.
    
24. Fresh whole, live and chunk bunker have been catching big bass off Buoy 11-B, the Cows and 28-B for a week now. Bunker schools are also a constant sight off Westport and are being harassed by these bigger bass that are running up to the mid-30-pound size range. Trevor Harvey, age 15, caught a keeper bass up to 32 pounds and 42 inches over at Hempsted Harbor, New York, over the weekend. Ed Kaminski caught a 28-pounder on mackerel in Stamford Harbor, which also holds adult bunker. George Saskala caught a 35-pounder off 11-B on a bunker chunk.
    
25. Fluke fishing has improved around Middle Passage and Green�s Ledge locally, but the best catches are still being made across the Sound off the north shore of Long Island.
    Here, like elsewhere in the region, there are tons of smaller bluefish all over the place, mixed in with the bunker schools. Lots of one-pounders but there are bigger fish caught on occasion.
    
26. This week, expect to see more decent-size bass caught along the Connecticut shoreline as this mass of big fish from the Hudson River is pushed eastward by rising water temperatures in the western end of the Sound. This movement has been delayed by the oddball weather, but it�s finally happening, better late than never.