On The Water 6/9/05

1. This week’s heat wave pushed up water temperatures up, especially in shallow saltwater ponds, bays and rivers. Tackle shops along the Rhode Island and Connecticut coastlines all report improved angler activity levels and corresponding increases in catch rates for striped bass, bluefish and fluke, with the greatest improvement in the fluke and bluefish departments.
2. Al Fee of Shaffer’s Marina in Mystic, Connecticut, reported that the local fluke picture has improved and anglers are catching a few more keepers lately, but they just need more of them. The fishing for fluke is still spotty along the south side of Fishers Island and in the eastern end of the Sound around the Mystic area, but seems to have picked up along the South Shore beaches of Rhode Island. Normally, the fluke reach Mystic within a week to ten days after they show in force off Misquamicut Beach. One boat landed 7 keepers off Misquamicut on Saturday, while others drifting along Fishers Island only reported shorts, so things are looking up as far as fluke fishing around Mystic is concerned for this weekend or certainly by next. Bass action is also improved with big fish, a 40-pound, 47-inch long striper being the best of the season so far. This fish was caught by Bill Zanks of Enfield by wire line trolling off the Watch Hill area on Monday. Other anglers from the marina reported taking bass to 37 inches along the east end of Fishers Island while seven year old Clayton Andrews of Stonington caught a 30-incher on a popper off Masons Island while fishing with his dad. Al goes out and fishes the lower river and reefs outside the mouth before and after work a couple times each week and said there are bass all over the place. He has caught fish over 30 inches several times so far this spring on poppers and soft plastics. He said that water temperatures were 63 in the Mystic River, up to 56 or 57 off Ram Island but only in the 52 to 53 range mid Sound, closer to Fishers Island where waters are deeper.
3. Joe Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston told me that his son, Captain Jack of Fish Connection Charters caught a striper out in the depths of the Race that was 47 inches and 40 pounds along with a few other decent fish out toward Gull Island and the Sluiceway. There are also increasing numbers of stripers on the Watch Hill/Fishers Island Reef Complex, mixed in with smaller bluefish that are mostly less than six pounds. Bob Veach and Joe fished Montauk Point on Monday and easily limited out on fluke at a rate of about one keeper for every three throw-backs. That’s better than late last summer, when anglers in that area reported a four or five to one, shorts to keepers ratio. Joe fished Gardiners Island Wednesday and caught a limit of fish from 5 pounds on down to about 19 inches on baited jigs. He hasn’t seen anyone fishing the local ledges such as Seaflower Reef, Vixens Ledge, or Sara’s Ledge. However, last week a friend told me he caught fish to 8 pounds off one of the ledges off the mouth of the Thames; take your pick as to which one it was, the point is there have been some fluke in this are for over a week, it appears few anglers are targeting them. Dennis who works at the shop said he caught seven fluke, all average keepers on Monday while fishing with a friend off Misquamicut Beach.
4. The Thames River has a few small bass and small blues to catch but it’s pretty warm at this point and the action in the river will not rev back up until early fall. American shad are running up at the Greenville Dam but not in huge numbers again this season. To date, according to the DEP’s fish lift count at Greenville Dam, there have only been 1,427 shad passed over the fish lift this year. This is sad, because there are two newly commissioned fish lifts upstream at Taftville and Occum that will allow these fish to reach spawning waters up the Shetucket River that have not had ripe shad on them for over two centuries. Over time it is hoped that these dams will increase the dwindling populations of shad, river herring and other species that come in from the ocean to spawn in the Thames watershed each spring and fall.
5. Joe mentioned that a customer who works for Sea-Tow told him that the new additives in gasoline have been causing problems in the big outboards because lately he’s been pulling many more of them than usual back to his home port in the Niantic Bay area.
6. Richard at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle in Waterford said that many more anglers have been out fishing since the warm weather hit. There are small blues in the Niantic River and around the outflow at Millstone Point. Bigger bass are in at Bartlett Reef and in the Race, where jigging three-way rigs with eels or bucktails down deep, or wire line trolling with big swimming plugs have been the best ways to catch them so far this season. There are finally a few fluke in Niantic Bay itself. Not a whole lot of fluke are in the local drifts yet, but fishing is much better than last week. No hickories yet in Niantic Bay or the river; they seem to come after the fluke show up in force, after waters have hit summer time levels. This means the hickory shad run shouldn’t be too far away if the heat continues.
7. Mark Lewchik of River’s End Tackle in Saybrook said he fished the Stonington area late last week and caught stripers to 21.5 pounds on flies. His partner had about an 8-pound fluke follow his fly but the fluke missed the fly. Too bad, because it had the potential to be a tippet-class record had the fish struck and stuck. Mark noted that there are still many striped bass in the lower Connecticut River but for some reason, they are not on the feed. Anglers say they are seeing fish swirling behind, but not hitting their lures. The recent moon tides may have something to do with this situation, or maybe they are on a small worm spawn of some sort - water temperatures are at the proper levels.
8. A few fluke have been caught locally around Black Point and The Brothers, but these fish have been generally few and small. Customers who made the run across the Sound to fish the south side of Montauk Point did better. One group who ran all the way to Block Island said they did not do very well on the fluke but caught a few sea bass. There have been fish on top at Plum Gut, a mix of bass and small blues while the Race is producing bigger fish, but down deep on the bottom where they are hitting diamond jigs and three-way rigs.
9. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said that the heat has improved the bluefish action and brought in some more bass, plus more skate, which is not a good thing. The stripers are moving around a bit so action is hit and miss at times in a given spot, though over the course of a day, fish are coming in from all the reefs and rock piles in his area all the way out to Falkner Island. He saw stripers between 36 and about 44 inches over the weekend, coming in from the rock piles, reefs and along the shoreline structure. Water temperatures have finally hit 59 to 60 degrees so it’s moving in the right direction. Bluefish are starting to tear things up a bit with fish to ten pounds caught on occasion, though most are smaller fish of six pounds and less. Things are just getting started as these fish finish their off shore spawning activities. Later this month bluefish will move inshore like invading conquers, these fish right now are like the early scouting parties.
10. Captain Morgan said that to his surprise after a slow spring, he recently saw some limits of winter flounder that were caught by anglers in boats fishing in tight along the Madison shoreline. He said that the successful anglers were barely a long cast from shore and fishing specific spots around the top of the tide. These fish were running up to about 16 to 17 inches and nearly two pounds in weight. The successful fishermen caught their flatfish on the top of the high tide for about an hour or so and then they were gone: “If you were there too early or late it was like they (the flounder) did not exist.”
11. Fluke fishing is still spotty on the Connecticut side of the Sound but a few fish are being caught. He’s not seen any really big ones so far this spring -the top end fluke have been only in the 20-inch size range. Anglers are catching fish but nothing to get excited about. After this week he expects fluke catches to pick up in both quantity and quality.
12. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle told me that he’s been seeing tons of fluke since the heat wave arrived. His buddies and he have been limiting out on decent sized keepers off the Housatonic River for a few days now. One friend’s wife caught a black sea bass that was 3.8 pounds, along with three nice fluke on Tuesday. Chris has weighed in a number of fluke in the 8- to 10-pound range since the weekend, but practically nothing before. Bass and bluefish action also picked up though not to the extent of the fluke. No really big bass lately, catches have primarily been small to medium sized schoolies. The bluefish are numerous but only 2 to 4 pounds on average. Bluefish catches have picked up tremendously along with the fluke.
13. Chris and his girlfriend fished Charles Island one evening for weakfish and they caught fluke of 19 and 20 inches while bouncing jigs with soft plastic teasers. The weakfishing has been slow for the past two weeks. Chris said the weaks seem to come and go randomly. They usually hit better at night when it’s hot. He’s been surprised by the fact that when he travels to open the shop each morning there are few or no boats off the Bridgeport Power Plant lately, no one is fishing that area. He concluded that angler participation is still low due to all the rain earlier this year, so many who would be fishing from boats are still not in the water even now! Using his issuance of boat ramp passes as proof, he had issued 38 all month, but gave out 41 Friday and Saturday alone over this past weekend.
14. Nick Mola of Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said they still have some larger stripers moving from west to east through the Norwalk area, following some schools of adult bunker that have moved into the western end of the Sound. Nick noted that customers said they hit them off Captains Island over the weekend and caught stripers in the 27- to 30-pound range. They also heard of stripers up to about 25 pounds caught off Buoy 11-B Tuesday on the outgoing tide. Bunker are moving through the Westport area as well. Stamford Harbor also has loads of bunker but the bass don’t seem to be on the fish that are up inside the harbor or those more toward the outside in the Sound. I bet it won’t take long for that situation to change if the bunker remain cornered in Stamford Harbor. Blues and decent sized striped bass are chasing them in most other places. If the bunker stick around, it looks like western Long Island Sound anglers could be in for some fun, at least early on this summer.
15. The fluke fishing continues to be productive at Sunken Meadow, Port Jefferson, and Eaton’s Neck across the Sound. The action is not so good on the Connecticut side of the Sound. There are a few smaller fish being caught off Bridgeport but nothing has been reported off Norwalk to this point in the season, but maybe anglers are more interested in the bunker-chasing bass than fluke. Obviously, those fluke that moved into the Stratford area and the lower Housatonic River have not spread westward yet, but they are not very far away from Norwalk and vicinity.
16. As temperatures rise, stripers will be pushed out of the Connecticut River to area reefs and along the coastline. The migration of Hudson fish is still to the west and moving, and according to reports from Rhode Island, bigger bass are moving through their area as well. So this week, striped bass fishing should be a wise choice around the offshore reefs and deepwater areas that normally produce early summer fish. No one spoke of squid this week but odds are they are or will be a prime bait source around the reefs of eastern Connecticut.
17. Fluke fishing is shaping up slowly but indications are that fishing will continue to improve on the Connecticut side of the Sound. It has already picked up along Rhody’s south shore beaches.
18. Porgies have not yet become a nuisance so it looks like the next couple of weeks will provide a window of opportunity to fish for fluke and stripers with tube and worm rigs, relatively unhampered by porgies and bluefish. However, very shortly, as temperatures climb, both of these species will arrive full force and the easy fishing will suddenly become challenging as baits are torn up and chopped, so enjoy the relatively unhampered fishing while you can—I plan to.