Newsday, NY side of LIS 7/29/05

1. Western Long Island Sound: Big bluefish to 12 pounds are taking bunker chunks and spread all over the area. Where there aren't any bluefish, you'll find porgies, according to Jack's B&T in City Island. Fluke are still biting well with some fish to 6 pounds and stripers are underneath the bluefish.
2. Huntington/Northport bays: The James Joseph in Huntington reports some terrific fluking with nice catches close to the dock. Many are finding limits and taking fish to 7 pounds with an occasional one close to 10 pounds. The open boats in Huntington are also switching their afternoon trips to bluefishing beginning today.
3. Smithtown Bay: Fluke and porgies are biting well as Rich Doyle had scup from 12 to 15 inches on clams in shallow waters off Cranes Neck, according to Swaine's B&T. Good fluke action with some keepers more than 20 inches. Rocco Ciurelo had his limit with fish to 24 inches using sand eels and bucktails. Lots of schoolie bass in Stony Brook Harbor and the Nissequogue with some keepers to 15 pounds. Bigger bass to 25 pounds started hitting surface plugs off the beach at Cranes Neck.
4. Port Jefferson to Mattituck Inlet: This week, there were some tremendous blitzes of bluefish with areas the size of football fields boiling up, according to Rocky Point Fishing Stop. Porgy fishing had improved for the boaters, meaning the fish are moving away from the shore. Stripers are around, but getting through the blues will be a chore. Further east, the Capt. Bob fleet has been catching keeper fluke, stripers, bluefish and sea bass.
5. Orient Point to Fishers Island: Bluefish exploded in the Gut midweek with diamond jigs or light-colored bucktails. Before that, John Scourikis caught a 50.85-pound striper fishing with Bob Rocchetta's Rainbow Charter. It was weighed at Wego Fishing in Southold, which also registered Regina Trevathan's 24.10-pound bass taken by the lighthouse on bunker chunks. Good surf action on the Sound side with bluefish taking poppers or jigs in the mornings and bass taking bomber lures at night.
6. The Peconics and Gardiners Bay: Porgies are biting big and fast with fish to 2 pounds and limits are hit fairly easily. There's also still a solid fluke bite as Emil Tillona had fish from 5.1 to 7.85 pounds by Gardiners using squid and sand eels. The sand eels are doing very well for fluke. Bluefish are keeping the porgies on the move.
7. Montauk Point: Fluking have been ducking and moving constantly this season; now they're back pretty much where they started, in the rips. They're also getting buzzed by those inshore bluefins. Capt. Bill Ricca of Alyssa Ann reports much-improved sharking (about a month behind schedule), with nice threshers and makos. Striper action isn't hot, but the fish being caught are pretty big. George Bowen took a 50.8-pounder on an eel over the weekend.
8. Shinnecock Bay: Action in the bay remains steady for fluke with some nice fish to 5 pounds being caught in very shallow water. Shinnecock Bay Fishing Station reports good catches between buoys 9 and 12 and outside by the castle. Squid and spearing and white bucktails have been working lately. Stripers are biting in the mornings just before sunrise by the bridge taking clams.
9. Moriches Bay: Some anglers are catching limits with about one in four fluke a keeper, according to Silly Lily Fishing Station. Killies are working well, along with bucktails and spearing on incoming tides. Buoys 14 to 17 and Harts Cove see most of the action. Stripers are in the cuts.
10. Great South Bay/Fire Island Inlet: The bay is producing some great fluke action but hardly any keepers. Anglers need to go outside using killies and squid or squid and spearing for the bigger fish to about 9 pounds. Ocean Beach has been a hot spot, according to J&J Sports in Patchogue. Mahi-mahi are starting to show up offshore and sharking is doing well with blues hanging around and makos available. Stripers can be found in the inlet near Sore Thumb, mostly on eels.
11. Jones Inlet/Western Bays: After a pretty slow summer, sea bass and porgy action has brightened up with good action on the reefs, according to Woodcleft Fishing Station. Clam bait and clam chum work for the bottom fish. The bigger fish have moved to deeper waters, probably to avoid the heat. Stripers are available in the ocean under bunker schools.
12. East Rockaway Inlet: Nice action for boats heading west to Ambrose Channel during the week, according to Bay Park Fishing Station, as Joshua Felix took a 12.66-pound fluke on Peruvian spearing and squid fishing with Joe Leggio on One More Cast and Lloyd, Kevin, Larry and Mike limited out on stripers and fluke to 5.46 pounds on No Time Charters.
13. New York Bight: The Big M Express reported terrific fluke action with limits and fish to 5 pounds. Most anglers were throwing back keepers by the end. Sea bass are also mixing in with the fluke. Ambrose Channel has had a great bite. Bluefishing has been strong for those jigging and chunking, and an occasional surprise weakfish.

The Day, New London 7/29/05

1. We had one real tough day striper fishing on the Watch Hill Reefs, said Al Golinski, referring to very stiff moon tides since last week. They waited a couple days for currents to lessen, then went back with a well of live bait for six bass to 38 pounds in the same area fished a couple days prior. Fluking is hitting its seasonal peak along the Rhode Island beaches. Capt. Ben DeMario fished local waters, guiding clients to bass of 44 pounds and releasing a 51-inch fish, both on live bait, both since Monday.
2. Capt. Don's Tackle in Charlestown said people stayed inside Quonny Pond during the two days of thick fog we had, using a tube and worm to troll school fish around the rock pile and the channel coming into the pond. Thirty to 50 feet was the spot for fluke to 5 pounds off the Pink House and about the same depth adjacent to rocky bottom off Quonny for more summer flounder. You can catch shad for bass bait along the surf line at daybreak about three-quarters of the way toward the breachway at East Beach.
3. Capt. Al Anderson spent the week trolling up school bluefin tuna around the Southwest Corner of Cox's Ledge, the Fingers northwest of the Dump and south of the 31-fathom Hole. His best trip was 21 fish tagged and released. One day they aborted the trip and returned home after the party got sick in dense fog and six-foot seas. On the way out or back from tuna trolling, they stopped at the top of the East Grounds to troll up bass and bluefish. One of the Montauk charter boats made a cod run to Cox's Ledge, fishing all the way done to the spot nicknamed Old Faithful. They weren't bordered too, too much by dogfish but landed only a small number of keeper cod on clams. A once great fishery has been reduced to this due to lack of proper management.
4. Don over at King Cove in Stonington reported a good week for fluke around 50 feet give or take both along the Rhode Island beaches and Isabella. Porgies are very big this year and pleasing all types of people in smaller boats. Some keeper blackfish were caught at Latimer Light and the Monsanto jetty on clams. Tube and worm trollers had stripers into the 30s, both from small boats and kayaks along many of our rocky beaches. Look for schoolies and small blues around Sandy Point at daybreak or when waters are quiet.
5. Allen at Shaffers Marina had a sellout weekend for his rental boats, all catching porgies, some fluke and a few blackfish in Fishers Island Sound. He took out his in-laws on Wednesday for some schoolies plugged up on top in the fog around Latimer Light then six keeper fluke at White Rock. He also took some time to fish with this writer, landing seven bass to 41 inches and an 8-pound blue casting live eels and plastic worms around Fishers Island. Kevin Sheehan and another slip customer are finding school bluefin tuna anywhere from five miles south of Fishers Island over to Nebraska Shoals. Capt. Bruce and his charters came in steadily with keepers bass chunked up at Sugar Reef.
6. Joe at the Fish Connection was making leaders when I called, putting down his task long enough to say they are some bunker up the river between Lehigh Oil and the Thermos condos with a few larger blues and a few bass from 30-35 inches under them. Dennis from the shop had a mess of short bass and two keepers chunking on Sugar Reef on Wednesday. Fluking is pretty steady now from White Rock over to Two Tree Channel along with school of small blues feeding on some tiny bait at times between Sarah's Ledge and Intrepid Rock. Look for large porgies when you anchor around Goshen Reef.
7. Stephanie Cramer used a very light fly rod to land school bass wading along the banks of the upper Thames. Her best trip was 17 last Saturday along with a 12-inch fluke that grabbed the fly just like a striper. She remarked that wading the river was a great way to cool off after a hot day.
8. Capt. Brad Glas of the Hel-Cat reported the blue fishing last week was very good and very poor at other times due to the extreme moon tides that “never brings anything good ... only stirs up everything and makes for mass confusion accompanied by mud boils.” Biggest fish of the week past was a 17-pound striper caught by Rick Roden of Putnam. Night trips to famed Alligator Ledge start tonight at 6:30 p.m. and then sail on Saturdays at 6 p.m.
9. Hillyers Tackle said the drop off at Black Point is the spot for big fluke if you have the patience to fish a whole squid in deep water waiting for the hit from a doormat. Bass catches the last few days were steady at Bartletts and Valiant with eels at night and tube and worm or live shad or porgies during the day. Best of the week to date was a 37.8-pounder by Joe DeRose on a live shad. Beach anglers found some small blues in close at times in the late afternoon between the mouth of the Thames and Harkness.
10. J&B Tackle noted the charter boats all caught blues well in The Race after the moon tides went past. Trolling high-speed lures for schoolie bluefin was productive on some, not all days, between The Horns and the Dump. Fluking along the eastern Connecticut shore is steady and will hopefully stay that way through the remainder of the summer. Porgies can be caught around bell No. 6 and most of the rocky high spots in the bay and Two Tree Channel.
11. Sherwood Lincoln made a trip from Niantic down to Falkners Island, fishing wrecks in deeper water in mid-Sound for a limit catch of sea bass to 6 pounds. Six of his fish were around 4 pounds and mixed in were a couple fluke to 6 pounds. Bass are on most of the inside reefs from Southwest Reef back to Outer Bartletts, ready to take a live bunker or porgy. You might find some bass bait in Clinton Harbor, or so the dockside gossip goes. [source The Day, New London Tim Coleman]

Conn Post 7/29/05

• Largemouth bass have become highly energized with the heat. Buzzbaits or "rat" type baits ripped across the weedy surfaces cause sudden and thrilling results. When using these lures, keep a second rod handy. Rig this rod with a weighted soft plastic worm. If an attacking bass missed your surface offering, cast the worm into the area of the strike. This second-chance cast often produces the desired conclusion. Try this dual-rod method in Lake Zoar, Gardner Lake, Rogers Lake, Highland Lake, Ball Pond, Mudge Pond, Lake Lillinonah, Coventry Lake, Mansfield Hollow Reservoir, Bantam Lake, the beaver ponds along the Bantam River in Litchfield, East Twin Lake, West Twin Lake, Winchester Lake, Messerschmidt's Pond, Pickerel Lake, Long Meadow Pond, Stillwater Pond, Winnemaug Lake, Mohawk Pond, Black Pond and Lake Saltonstall.
  
• Smallmouth bass also are providing similar good fortune for fishermen. Lake-dwelling smallmouth bass are hitting tube lures, jigging spoons and surface twitch baits, such as Rapala minnows and Fin-S Fish. The better smallie angling has been coming from Bantam Lake, Bashan Lake, Gardner Lake, Candlewood Lake, Highland Lake, Squantz Pond, Mashapaug Lake and the northern end of Lake Lillinonah. Don't overlook the state's larger river systems for smallmouth bass. While these river-bred fish rarely exceed two pounds, their environment gives them strong muscles for superior fights. Noteworthy rivers are the Enfield section of the Connecticut River, the lower Salmon River, the Farmington River near Tariffville, the Housatonic River between Bulls Bridge and Lake Lillinonah. Small crayfish imitations are all you need to entice the river smallmouths.
  
• Over the past week, the striped bass fishing has improved dramatically and can be rated as excellent with several fish over 40 inches being taken. The bigger bass seem to prefer real bait, such as live eels, hickory shad, live porgy, large bunker chunks and mackerel halves. Because of the summer heat, the best fishing times are at dawn and dusk. Some of the better bass action is coming from Bartlett Reef, Hatchett Reef, Crane Reef, the Connecticut River between the Baldwin Bridge and the Amtrak RR Bridge, Southwest Reef, Six Mile Reef, Browns Reef, the mouth of Branford Harbor, the confluence of the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers, Pond Point, the area between Gulf Beach and Milford Point, the shoreline access points on the Housatonic River from its mouth to the Merritt Parkway Bridge, Bridgeport Harbor, Sunken Island, Southport Harbor, Compo Beach and throughout the Norwalk Island Chain, especially on island points and shoals.
  
• Bluefishing has improved, too, as larger fish showed up this week. To date the better chopper action is in the eastern end of Long Island Sound, where fish in the 15-pound class are being reported. Locally, a 10-pound blue is worth bragging about. Look for bluefish in New Haven Harbor, Milford Harbor, Bridgeport Harbor, Black Rock Harbor, and Greenwich Harbor.
  
• Also, snapper bluefish are beginning to show in the area estuaries. These 3-to 4-inch-long fish are fun to catch on light tackle. They make excellent quarry for children and novices learning about the sport. The creel limit on snappers is 10. — FRANK MCKANE JR.

Red Neck Skiff

This is the new Red-Neck Skiff, shown here in the center console configuration.

Newsday, NY side of LIS 7/22/05

1. Western Long Island Sound: With all the attention on blues, bass and porgies, don't forget about the fluke! Derrick Gordon and Virginia Hoffstead drilled a 9-pounder on Wednesday, according to Jack's B&T in City Island. Bluefish are everywhere, big and small, and in the evenings you can get bait underneath them for stripers. Chunks work well. Porgy fishing is hot at the points.
2. Huntington / Northport bays: Big bluefish are here with rig-busters to 12 pounds and lots from 8-10 filling up on the bunker schools that are still around. It makes it hard to get low enough to catch stripers, but there are keepers under. Porgies are in very shallow water, no deeper than 15 feet, and fluking has been hottest in Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor.
3. Smithtown Bay: Gerry Focone caught a 7.4-pound fluke off Cranes Neck along with other fish from 3-6 pounds last weekend, according to Swaine's B&T. Fluke are biting well in the mouth of the Nissequogue with fish to 21 inches taking live killies. Dave Ciotti caught a keeper bass there on a live killie. Stony Brook Harbor may be one of the few north shore places without bluefish bothering bass anglers.
4. Port Jefferson to Mattituck Inlet: The fluke fishing isn't as hot as it was last week, but there are still keepers to be picked up. Heather Hopp caught an 18-pounder for her first striped bass aboard the Celtic Quest on Wednesday as the boat hit a blitz of bluefish, then calmed things down with fluke action. Capt. Bruce Cash of the Port Jeff Ace and Prowler said the porgy bite should explode soon.
5. Orient Point to Fishers Island: The Gut and the Race are producing just as they should be this time of year with plenty of striped bass and bluefish. Jigging light-colored bucktails during the day for bluefish works well and dark colors or eels for bass is a good bet. Wego Fishing in Southold said they've heard good reports on the two-toned pork rinds they carry. Chunking for bass during the day has worked well, too.
6. The Peconics and Gardiners Bay: Gardiners is on fire with fluke, and although there are very few super-big fish there are lots of 4-6 pounders and anglers are limiting out on keepers fairly regularly. Bluefish are being caught from most beaches. Porgy fishing has been very solid with big ones that make for good eating.
7. Montauk Point: Parrish Dave busted a 54.78-pound bass on the south side on Monday, one of many big fish more than 40 pounds weighed this week at Freddie's. The big stripers have been drawn in by the porgies who showed up along the sand beaches last week. Fluking has been good as far west as Hither Hills in 50 feet of water. Fluke anglers in Block Island Sound have been surprised to see bluefin tuna splashing around their boats and have started taking diamond jigs for the 20-30 pound fish. Just remember those permits!
8. Shinnecock Bay: The fluke were back to bitin' as the Shinnecock Star reported a great bite in both the ocean and bay with fish to 6 pounds. It's simmered down a bit, probably because of the heat. Stripers and bluefish are even hard to come by. Offshore, those bluefins that were so close to shore moved to the west toward the Yankee wreck.
9. Moriches Bay: Fluking in the bay has been great with some nice keepers on Wednesday night's incoming at the west side of the inlet, according to B&B in Center Moriches. Pink is the hot color for teasers and rigs. A nice blitz of schoolie bass and bluefish hit the west side of the inlet yesterday morning and B&B got a report from Chris Dayton and his sons plugging bass to 38 inches just outside the inlet. Bluefin tuna are in water anywhere from 30 to 180 feet deep.
10. Great South Bay / Fire Island Inlet: Offshore fluking has been very good as Augie's in Babylon reports Leo S. and Billy D. had keepers to 7 pounds in 50 feet of water off Ocean Beach. Bass fishing has been decent, but the key is finding bunker schools and live-lining bait. No bunker, no bass. Ralph Perone had 22 bluefin to 50 pounds about 18 miles offshore.
11. Jones Inlet / Western Bays: Scotty's in Point Lookout reports its half-day skiffs found nice 3- to 4-pound fluke by the golf course at Lido on squid and spearing. Further off, boats have been fluking with success from Reynolds Channel to the Roundhouse in about 40 feet of water. Bass are biting at the bridges on clam bellies.
12. East Rockaway Inlet: Jerry, Mike and Brian fished off Riis Park for 16 striped bass to 37.5 inches using fresh whole clams on Tuesday, according to Bay Park Fishing Station. If you can find bunker schools, you'll get into blues and bass. Bay Park also reports a nice flow of sharks coming in as No Time Charters had a 147-pound mako on Monday and Lloyd Malsin, Ariel Berman and Larry Ludwig had a 148-pound mako on Sunday.
13. New York Bight: Lots of bait in the water and the fish are beneath. Anglers are finding a nice mix of blues and bass with an occasional weakfish. The Big M Express limited out all its customers on its fluke trip this week with fish to 4.8 pounds.

Conn Post Frank McKane 7/22/05

1. Summer took a dramatic turn over the past week with hazy, hot and humid weather. This climate change seemed to affect anglers more than the fish. While air temperatures were pushing 90 and keeping fishers near air conditioners, the water surface temperature in Long Island Sound only ranged from the mid 60s to the low 70s. Inland, the lake water temperatures are in the mid- to upper-70s. These water temperatures are very comfortable for most game fish species.
2. Two great children stories came out of Stratford. Allison Bourque, 7, of Stratford, won East End Yacht Club's annual children's fishing derby last weekend after she caught a 13.50-pound sand shark. Joe Mancini, 15, of Stratford, caught his first keeper striped bass last week off the Birdseye Street fishing pier. His fish weighed 14.64 pounds.
3. Fluke action seemed to rebound this week. Locally, the five-plus pound mega-fluke have all but vanished. But there are enough three pounders to keep the fishery alive. If you want to catch big fluke, head to the deeper waters of the eastern Sound, where most of the trophy class fish are coming from water greater than 100 feet deep. In the shallow water, look for fluke off Shea Island in Norwalk, Buoy 2A, the mouth of Southport Harbor, Penfield Reef, the breakline at the mouth of the Housatonic River and the New Haven Harbor channels outside of the breakwaters.
4. Larry Lainey of Stratford tried fluke fishing in New Haven Harbor last week where he caught a limit of fluke. His largest fish weighed 4.12 pounds. Two other fish were close to four pounds at 3.91 and 3.86. Anglers are reminded that the state Department of Environmental Protection imposed a 17-inch minimum and a six-fish daily creel limit. Also, if you fillet your fluke on the water, you must keep the skeleton rack to prove the fish met the minimum size requirement.
5. Striped bass fishing has been fair to good throughout the Sound. Two hot tactics have emerged for catching the trophy 30-pound bass. The first option is to catch a bunch of porgy and keep them in a live well. Then, free-line the live porgy over reefs and points. The bass can't resist the struggling scup. Another proven method is to troll or drift with a snake and eel skin. Look for the snake models made from rubber instead of latex plastic. The rubber gives a better action and holds up against fish teeth, barnacles and sharp rocks.
6. Gary Smith of Weston caught a 36-pound striped bass off the Middleground last week. He was drifting a black bucktail jig with a yellow pork rind trailer on a three-way set-up according to the Jimmy O's report. Nick Terek of Fairfield stopped by Ted's Bait & Tackle with a 23.65 pound striped bass he landed off Stamford. Chris Alvarez of Shelton hooked a 12.90-pound striper in the Housatonic River. Both of the above fish were taken on bunker chunks.
7. Elsewhere on the Sound, small harbor bluefish are cooperating in all the area harbors. Blackfish action is fair to good on the reefs off New Haven. Porgy are on most of the reefs and rock piles in 25 to 40 feet of water. Mark Stanley of Stratford was fishing for fluke at the mouth of the Housatonic River last week. Instead of catching a fluke, he hooked a 10.66-pound weakfish on a squid rig.
8. Largemouth bass fishing is good to excellent around the state. The best reports have been coming from Gardner Lake, Beseck Lake, Congamond Lake, Mamanasco Lake, Candlewood Lake, East Twin Lake, Stillwater Pond, Hatch Pond, Lake Saltonstall and Mansfield Hollow Reservoir. Anglers fishing the larger, water-skiing lakes report the better fishing is coming around dawn and in late evening when the pleasure boats are in dry dock.
9. In spite of the heat, trout remain active in the Housatonic River trout management area, the upper Naugatuck River, Farmington River, Fivemile River and Salmon River. Look for rainbow trout in the fast water rapids and brown trout in the larger, deeper pools.

NB Hearld, B Salerno 7/22/05

• One of the best angling revelations to hit the Northeast coast in the past 25 years is the "tube and worm." More and more anglers are turning to this deadly combo as an effective method for catching large stripers on light tackle. This bait and lure rig was actually born from a successful technique that New England striper anglers have used for a very long time. Many anglers can probably remember fishing with tarred hand-lines in the Niantic River or from one of the many jetties that line our coast. Some very large bass were taken using sandworms strung naturally on a single hook.Variations of this method included using Cape Cod or Niantic Bay spinners rigged in tandem with sandworms and either drifted or trolled along the rocky beaches of the rivers and bays.The tube and worm rig includes all the fish catching qualities of previously successful rigs and a bit more.
• T & W rigs are quite simple. The setup consists of a 16- to 18-inch length of soft latex or vinyl tubing strung on a length of twisted stainless trolling wire. A quality 4/0 or 6/0 hook is twisted on to the wire and a egg sinker is added to the front end topped with a swivel.Tubes vary in diameters from a slim 1/2-inch up to garden hose size of 1 inch or more. Top colors are maroon or dark red and black, although white, bubblegum and chartreuse are preferred by some anglers. While many anglers build their own rigs, most coastal tackle shops carry a stock of excellent commercial rigs.
• Tube and worm rigs are designed for slow shallow water trolling. This style of tube trolling is different from most saltwater trolling methods. The tackle is light and no additional weight is needed. The key is the degree of sensitivity that is often absent when trolling with heavy wire line setups. The ideal light-tackle tube and worm rigs should be a light to medium high modulus spinning or casting rod from 7 to 8 feet in length. The outfit should be spooled with 15- to 25-pound test mono. Many anglers have adapted the Berkley Fireline or similar braided brands as their favorite tube line. It’s strength, low diameter and sinking qualities make it an ideal line for light tackle trolling. Experienced anglers use an 8- to 15-foot, 50-pound leader which is attached directly to the tube. In very clear water fluorocarbon leaders are best for their low visibility and knot strength.
• Live sandworms are the number one choice for most tube and worm fishermen. Some fishermen use a whole worm while others say that a piece is as productive as the whole worm. In a pinch, when sandworms are in short supply soft plastic imitations do catch fish
• Fishing a tube and worm is a relatively easy technique to master. The hook is baited with a lively sandworm by impaling it through the tip of the head. Let the line out at the slowest trolling speed possible. Occasionally stop or thumb the line to keep the rig from going straight to the bottom and getting hung up. Again, the optimum word is slow trolling. Speeds of 1.5 to 2 miles per hour are usually best. Anglers that concentrate on keeping it slow and low down in the strike zone are much more successful. Troll the rig at the slowest possible speed, approximately 125 feet behind the boat, keeping the rod tip low. Hold the rod, do not put it in a holder as it is important to feel the nuances of the tube as it twists and undulates through the water. Holding the rod will also alert the angler to bottom fish that may nibble on the worm and weeds and other flotsam that may hang on the rig. When a fish hits, it is important to resist setting the hook quickly. Setting the hook prematurely usually results in the worm breaking away from the hook and the bass turning off with the bait. Large bass tend to attack the worm right at the head, and get stung by the hook.Smaller bass and bluefish will begin biting the end of the worm until they get to the tube and hook.
• The best places to troll the tube and worm combo are along rocky beaches, points, reefs and other structures. Troll as close as safely possible to the rocks where the depth is 8 to 15 feet. This method of fishing does not require a great deal of knowledge or experience, but the angler will become intimately familiar with areas and learn to recognize productive striped bass habitats.
• Tube and Worm trolling is an effective and affordable method of fishing for stripers. It’s a great technique for getting kids and novices into fish. Take the time to master this style of fishing and soon you’ll become a disciple of the deadly combo.

1. FISHING REPORT: Trout is reported as good from the Farmington, Shetucket, Housatonic, Naugatuck (deep holes), Fivemile, and Salmon Rivers and Mashmoquet Brook. Early morning and evenings are peak summer fishing times. Look for rainbow trout to be in the fast water and the browns to be in the larger, deeper pools. Bait fisherman are relying on a corn/mealworm combination. Fly anglers report hatches of summer caddis, Needhami, Isonychia, Blue Wing Olives, Sulphurs, Midges and Black Ants on the Farmington River. Anglers are advised that during the week of 7/18 to 7/24 West Branch flows may be lower as there will be no releases for downstream power generation. DEP Inland Fisheries is also conducting some fish sampling during this week.
2. Largemouth bass fishing is good to excellent at Crystal, Gardner, Beseck, Hayward, Red Cedar, Congamond, Mamanasco, Candlewood, Wonoscopomuc, East Twin and Rogers Lakes. Smallmouth action is reported from Gardner Lake, West Hill Pond, Squantz Pond, and in the Shetucket, Quinebaug and Housatonic Rivers.
3. Northern Pike are hitting at Mansfield Hollow Reservoir, Lake Lillinonah, Bantam Lake, Winchester Lake, and Pachaug Pond.
4. In saltwater, striped bass fishing remains good on the local reefs. Live lining scup and the tube and worm combination are working well for "cow" bass. Both stripers and bluefish can be found off Watch Hill, Ram Island Reef, the Race, Plum Gut, Bartlett Reef, the humps south of Hatchett Reef, Long Sand Shoal, Southwest Reef, Sixmile Reef the reefs off Branford, New Haven Harbor, Charles Island area, Penfield Reef, and around the Norwalk Islands.
5. Best spots for summer flounder are along the south side of Fishers Island and off the beaches near Misquamicut.

On The Water 7/21/05

1. This week’s fog may have kept many anglers at home or within sight of land, but it brought the bass out in a number of areas. Stripers are not creatures of bright bluebird weather, they prefer the cover of darkness to feed. However, under overcast conditions, they will often cruise in close to the rocks and feed heavily throughout the day. Anglers and charter captains who know this took advantage this past week. The best catches are still coming out of the eastern end of this reporting area. However, this week no one was complaining anywhere we made a phone call.
2. Rob Bestwick at Quaker Lane Bait and Tackle, North Kingstown told us Steve McKenna, their resident night-stalker fisherman, is still doing well from the beaches in the Narragansett area. Monday evening, Steve caught seven bass, with a couple of fish up to 25 pounds. Captain Jim White of White Ghost Charters also has had some excellent fishing up inside Narragansett Bay. This week he didn’t catch the monsters he’s seen in the recent past but has put his charters on to good numbers of fish over 20 pounds.
3. Bluefish action has picked up all over, with all the spots from Narrow River up inside the bay to Warwick producing fish. The catch is dominated by those ever-present year-old bluefish of one to two pounds. Rob said, “Even if you don’t want them, you will still catch them everywhere.”
4. Thomcat Pelletier was out fluking when we called on Wednesday. Thom said he’s been doing well in the Point Judith area but had no specific reports this week of monster fish, just that the bite is still going on. Fish are being caught consistently from Green Hill up into the bay as far as Jamestown, where many boats are catching fish.
5. No real major catches this week, but plenty of steady action from about everything one could ask for in saltwater fish.
6. Peter at Saltwater Edge, Newport reported that there were small (50 to 70 pounds) bluefin tuna in the area around Newport as of Tuesday. The fish were ripping around in the fog, causing a fracas among anglers who were practically killing themselves and others to get a line into them. Pete, who doesn’t like to report such news due to the chaos it creates, said he would bet that few if any of the anglers after these fish are aware of the fact that boats must have a federal permit to possess these and other offshore pelagics. I would back him in that bet. Be aware of this fact or face a hefty federal fine. Pete noted that the police are out and about looking for offenders, so it’s best to leave these fish alone unless you are licensed, equipped and ready for war.
7. Bass fishing has been fantastic in the Newport area from a boat. There are giant bass around all the major reefs and rock piles from Brenton Reef to the east. Pete’s charters have been seeing and/or catching 40-pound-plus bass nearly every day in the fog. The fog has improved the fishing tremendously over the weekend and early into the week. However, be aware that the sunny days that have followed will probably put them back down deep and recreate the dusk-through-dawn bite. Pete has even had some surface blasts from larger fish this week, possibly weighing in the 50s. They are fishing large surface lures and are consistently getting blow-ups from such monsters.
8. Amber, daughter of Captain Andy Dangelo of Maridee Bait and Tackle, Narragansett, RI said her dad caught 12 bluefin tuna and kept their limit of two earlier in the week in an undisclosed area near Block Island. The fishing has improved greatly for tuna over the past few weeks as water temperatures have finally risen to comfortable levels for this species that likes it in the mid-60s.
9. The bass fishing has become pretty much a night-fishing deal with eels or chunk baits off the local jetties, rocks and beaches. Anglers are doing well but have reported no monsters. Fish are typically topping out at 20 to 25 pounds; however, there was a 50-pounder caught on an eel off one of the local beaches last week.
10. Porgies are running stronger, with many anglers switching over to them in lieu of fluke, which have been much tougher to locate and catch lately. Fluke fishing has been a slow pick even from the boats, with most of the better catches coming in from the deeper waters off Matunuck Beach and Green Hill. A few anglers are taking occasional keeper fluke from shore off the west wall at Galilee.
11. Justin at Breachway Tackle, Charlestown said fishing’s been good lately, overall. Bass and blues are hitting well out front and from the breachway. Bass are still around but are even larger and more abundant off the southwestern end of Block Island.
12. Fluke fishing has slowed this week off Charlestown and Nebraska Shoal. Lately the best catches have come from East Beach, Quonny Pond and south to Misquamicut.
13. Blackfish and scup are hitting well off the end of the breachway. Nothing big, just run-of-the-mill stuff. Blacks are topping out at about six pounds, and there are bunches of scup around to catch when the blacks don’t cooperate. Porgies are finally reaching the point where they are starting to get in the way of fluke, but no one is whining too much.
14. Bob at Wildwood Outfitters, Wakefield, Rhode Island said the big story has been anglers spotting those same small bluefin tuna Peter told us about. These tuna appear to be on the move, with fish from 50 to 70 pounds being seen, but not caught to his knowledge, all along the mouth of Narragansett Bay. Up until Monday he’d heard six or seven reports of tuna blasting on the surface between Galilee and Newport. Overall, he said the fishing has been slower this week, due primarily to the weather keeping anglers away.
15. Bass up to 18 or 20 pounds have been hitting needlefish plugs in the Green Hill area and off Annawan Cliffs in Narragansett. They have been taking chunk herring and chunk bunker from the center wall at Point Judith to Green Hill Beach, where one customer said he caught five stripers between 28 and 36 inches. The problem has been getting the bait below the bluefish to where the bass are holding, in order to catch them.
16. One angler caught three striped bass from 21 to 32 inches on Mario’s Squid strips and jigs while fluking off Deep Hole one day earlier this week – a pleasant surprise that indicates what the best species to chase in this area might be.
17. John Swienton, owner of Twin Maples Tackle out on Block Island, told us they are doing well on stripers up to 30-plus pounds. He had one come in that weighed around 40 pounds this week, but most are in the 30s. There was a shot of false albacore running past the island one day in the fog that one customer spotted while he was fluke fishing along the west side of the island.
18. Eels are working best for large stripers in the evenings from beaches and from boats cast to the shoreline structure or three-wayed out around the southwest corner.
19. Fluke are being caught more frequently again, partially because “the dogs” have slacked off and hopefully moved away from the island. If you hit dogfish while drifting for fluke, simply move shallower or deeper in 10-foot increments until you get out of them. This ploy won’t always work, but it’s worth a try when the dogfish begin chopping all your baits.
20. John noted that a few sea bass are showing up mixed in with the fluke. The best so far was a monster humpbacked six-pounder that was caught over the weekend. The best sea bass grounds are along the west side of the island where there are more rocks to hold them. Anglers are taking a few sea bass while they drift for fluke and happen to pass by the rock piles and small bits of structure where sea bass live.
21. Bluefish are in thick all around the entrance to the harbor. Most are those under two pounds that seem to be everywhere, but there are a few bigger fish being caught.
22. The hard-core and charters are catching bluefins not too far off the island lately, but no one is talking specifics about where they are fishing. One customer said he caught fish to 150 pounds, not the small schoolies that others are catching and seeing. This has created quite a stir among the locals while this event lasts.
23. John said a couple of makos were caught south of the island, and again not very far out. One that was weighed in locally was around 200 pounds. These fish were probably feeding on blues that have come in close to the island. One customer said that while fishing near the mainland he had a large blue bit off right at the boat by what he thought could have been a mako shark, but that was not a positive identification. Some weird things are happening out in the bluewater that could make for interesting fish stories as this oddball season progresses.
24. Captain Don of Captain Don’s Tackle, Route 1, Charlestown, Rhode Island reported that the fishing hasn’t been too exciting this week in his area. East Beach is one spot where a few of his customers have been fishing with live hickory shad and consistently picking up bass from 16 to 25 pounds, but not much bigger. There are tons of shad in Quonny Pond, along with bunches of smaller bass and those small blues mixed in to play around with. These fish are being harassed by the armada of kayakers and small-boat anglers who are doing well on light tackle with soft plastics and trolling tube and worms up inside Quonny Salt Pond.
25. There are also a good number of fluke up inside the pond to catch, as well. Anglers are taking them on small leadheads baited with a strip of squid and a live mummichog, what I call a fluke sandwich. These fluke are not doormats, but enough keepers to make the effort worthwhile can be caught and culled from the many shorts that will be caught fishing this way.
26. Outside along the beaches, anglers are taking limits of fluke more consistently this week, with top-end fish up to about 5 pounds. Reportedly a good deal of the action is shallow, in 30 feet of water. Captain Don said it takes patience to catch your five fish, Rhode Island’s limit, so don’t expect them to jump into the boat. Fish up to 10 pounds are being caught outside along the beaches, but most of the decent fish are half that size and numbers overall are not high.
27. There are loads of blackfish and scup around for everyone to catch. So, no matter what, there’s something out there for even the weekend warriors to have fun with.
28. Don, of King Cove Marina, Stonington told us that a couple of anglers caught keeper fluke out off Misquamicut Beach, where they caught 30 fish, eight of which were keepers.
29. Another group of anglers who were three-waying eels caught stripers up to 34 pounds off the south side of Fishers Island over the weekend. Surfcasters who are willing to make the mile-long walk to the hook at Napatree Point are doing very well from the shore on a mix of bass of all sizes and blues, mostly the one- and two-pounders. Another group targeted porgies and limited out in a hurry, an indication that these fish will soon begin getting in the way of anglers tubing for bass and trying to catch fluke in close to the rocks.
30. Don noted that porgies are at an all-time high in this region. I will add that there are many top-quality fish to be caught, so don’t be afraid to cull fish to limit out with jumbos of a foot or more. The minimum size is 10.5 inches, and there are tons of this size fish and larger out there to catch. My last trip to Fishers Island we caught a 14-incher on a tube and worm, and that’s impressive considering we run 3/0 hooks on these tubes to minimize handling of spiny, unwanted scup. Catching a big scup or porgy is great when that’s your target species, but it’s a pain in the neck when they are not.
31. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said they saw many nice fluke this weekend, including a dozen between 4 and 7 pounds from Rhode Island as a result of their small, in-house, Shaffer’s Marina tournament. The weekend was tough fishing, due to the fog. Many stayed close to the river and did O.K. but worked hard to catch some fish.
32. I made a spur of the moment trip last Thursday to the lower Mystic River to catch a perfect wind and tide drift late in the day but only managed to take two short fluke, along with a half-dozen stripers to about 30 inches after we gave up on the fluke. That’s how it’s been all season for me in the Sound, one day fluke fishing is good, the next day the same spot is slow. So you just have to take your chances that it will be an “on” rather than an “off” day when you hit a given spot. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hitting mostly “offs” this season for fluke.
33. Cheryl said that one of their bigger boats, with serious electronics that can see through fog, caught bass weighing over 20 pounds, off Valiant Rock on umbrella rigs over the weekend, but that was about it for striper reports this week. She said their rental boats are doing well on porgies all over the place. “Moms and dads are happy with all the scup around.” Fluke have been best off the beaches, with a few decent catches being brought in. Some short fluke were reportedly caught from the upper river in the downtown area near the drawbridge – most of the fish from inside are shorts.
34. In the river, the hickory shad are scarcer than they were, so those who had been live-lining these fish for jumbo bass have switched to chunks, eels and live scup.
35. Joe Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames has been seeing good catches of fluke from around the mouth of the Thames River, east to Mystic and west to Ocean Beach and Niantic Bay.
36. One customer caught a 51-pound striper from The Race, and another caught a 44-pounder from Bartlett Reef over the weekend. Captain Jack Balint has caught a number of 30- to 40-pounders recently in his travels from Watch Hill to the Sluiceway. Jack and other customers have reported catching huge porgies up to 16 inches while tube-and-worming for stripers.
37. The Thames is full of small bluefish, those one- and two-pounders. This means that anglers fishing the banks or from small boats along the river’s extensive flats are doing pretty well, particularly early and late in the day. This is light-line and fly-fishing to get the most enjoyment out of these small but mighty scrappers.
38. There are finally a few, very few, blue crabs being reported in the lower Thames and its coves and out along the coast to Poquonnock River, Groton and west to Jordan Cove, but there are not very many of them to catch anywhere this summer.
39. Richard at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said the stripers are good to fair in The Race, Bartlett Reef and The Gut, with catches being made mostly dusk through dawn. Not much on blackfish, lately. A few stragglers are being caught between the bridges, but not many anglers are targeting them this time of year. A few nice fluke are being caught in the Niantic Bay to Black Point area. A 12-pounder won the shop’s annual contest, and a 10.5-pounder came in second. The top bass for this private event was only 25 pounds. It is an in-house contest that goes for a few weeks.
40. I was fishing in the fog in that Noreast.com Flukemania Shootout that was held this past weekend in the tri-state area. We didn’t do much. Three of us, fishing on some good big fluke spots my friend knows, managed to take 16 total fluke, 14 keepers that averaged around four pounds, but nothing over five, so we didn’t even bother taking our best two fluke in to the scales. Sixteen pounds won the event.
41. There are reports of small bluefin off Block Island this week. They had two separate reports that jibe with the reports of bluefins from the Rhode Island shops listed above.
42. Mark Lewchik of River’s End, Saybrook said it’s been kind of slow due to the fog. Bass were good over the weekend in the Sluiceway and Gut, but it’s slowed since then for some reason.
43. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said the Noreast.com fluke contest they weighed fish for last weekend was a success. Surprisingly, they registered the first-place and winning two-fish entries for Ron Dougan, who caught his $10,000 first-place fluke over in Rhode Island. Dougan weighed in the best two fish combined, with a total weight of 16 pounds 5 ounces, with fish of 11 and 5 pounds and change. The neat thing is the angler was not one of the big fluke experts, heavy hitters that I personally expected to walk away with this event. Ron caught his winning fish on a rod the Captain had set him up with a few weeks ago when he decided to target fluke more seriously.
44. Outside of the contest, the fluke are moving in close to Hammonasset and local spots. He saw fish of 8 to 11 pounds from the Sound since the weekend.
45. The Captain said the big bass are still ripping around the reefs and rock piles around his area and out as far into the Sound as Falkner Island. He’s still seeing good numbers of bigger bass from places like Southwest Reef, Six Mile and Kimberly, and places in along the coast such as Duck Island and the Clinton Breakwall. Live eels after dark are the ticket for big bass here, like every place else in the region. Anglers are taking big bass but mostly smaller stuff when daytime fishing, close to shore on tube-and-worm rigs.
46. They are just beginning to see small snappers showing up along the docks and marinas over the past week. Blues are all over the place, mostly those “cocktail blues” everyone is reporting, but there are fish over 10 pounds being caught on a regular basis, mainly by anglers targeting big bass with chunk baits and eels. Blackfish are being caught but not targeted. Scup are all over the place, but not many people are after them because the fluke and bass have been cooperating so well.
47. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford said they have been seeing excellent fishing in his area for the past week or so. Anglers have been taking bass up into the high teens by pitching plugs off Charles Island from dusk through dawn. One of his customers caught a few stripers this week, with fish up to about 20 pounds a couple of evenings, all on plugs. This guy said he has dropped many of the larger fish he’s hooked recently because he downsized his gear for the small bass he’d been catching. These fish were so big that many of them got off during the battle, but he’s been having a blast while this bite lasts.
48. There are lots of small blues around, which, according to Chris, provide the guys casting from shore or jetties and piers a pretty steady bite when the tides are right, so they are fishing and going back anticipating action. Size is not the big thing, it’s catching something and anticipating doing it on a regular basis that keep people on the water.
49. Not many reports from the deeper water of the mid-Sound lately, due to winds and fog.
50. The odd thing this week that Chris heard of was three different reports of anglers having bass or blues cut in half by sharks of some sort in the Milford area. The first report came out of Walnut Beach in Milford, where a husband and wife team reported having a bass cut in two by a long skinny shark. Another angler had the same thing happen with a bluefish along the West Haven line, where he had a small blue held by a shark all the way into shore before it finally bit it off. The third story of a bluefish being chopped came in from Charles Island. It could be huge blues doing this, but two of the people actually saw what they thought were sharks. My guess, based on the history of these sorts of events in torrid weather like we’re experiencing, is they are probably brown sharks, fish-eaters that grow to about 150 pounds. They are not considered dangerous to swimmers. They move inshore in the heat of summer to give birth to their live young in the middle of dense schools of bait so the babies have immediate food sources.
51. One summer about a decade ago, a bunch of 100-pound or better brown sharks moved into the mouth of the Connecticut River and took up residence for a few weeks. Anglers got wind and actually began chumming and chunking them. The result was the current Connecticut state record brown (sandbar) shark of 118 pounds that was caught off the Connecticut River mouth in 1995.
52. Chris caught a decent bass on a popper the other night, a fish of 19 pounds out off Harkness State Park in Waterford. This was his personal best popper-caught striper, so he wanted to take a minute to brag about it.
53. Chris said he has some new stuff called “Fish Bite,” artificial bait like Berkley’s Gulp, that he will be bringing into the store for his porgy-fishing customers. It is a scent-impregnated material that looks like a strip of bubble gum. To use it, a piece is broken off and rolled into a ball then stuck on the hook. He said customers who have tried it say the porgies love it. One angler said it was great for his wife who hates to handle and cut up dirty sand worms. She was baiting up with this clean, easy-to-use manmade bait all day, and she caught as well as he did using worms, without the dirty mess.
54. Another weakfish of five pounds came in this week from the Housatonic River. The fish was caught by accident by an angler casting for schoolie bass.
55. In New Haven Harbor, one angler limited out three days in a row on fluke. A sign a few of these fish may be moving into the western end of the Sound. This angler, who is a hard-core fluke fisherman, said this was the first time in a few seasons that he’s caught three limits back to back in the New Haven area.
56. Anglers are generally happy because they are all catching something. This is the first solid week in a while when no one complained about the fishing in the Bridgeport to Stratford and Milford area. Everyone who has gone out has been putting bends in their rods with something, and that’s a good thing for tackle shop owners everywhere.
57. Luke from Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said there are loads of bass and blues up inside Norwalk Harbor and around the islands, under the bunker schools that moved in a week or so ago. The bunker are being pushed up against the islands by 10-pound blues and slaughtered. In some areas there are also big bass blasting the bunker. One angler caught a 14-pound blue over in Westport on a topwater plug, along with some decent bass. Loads of one- to two-pound bluefish are all over the Norwalk area, like everywhere else in the region. Luke caught bluefish near Green’s Ledge Light on topwater lures the other day. He said they were small fish that were not showing on the surface. He saw a bird dip, so he cast and immediately began hooking up. The fish were abundant, and he caught many while the bite lasted.
58. No really big bass were caught this week, but there were plenty of fish up to 40 inches. Also some decent bass have been caught deep, in 100 feet of water, by fishing sand worms on three-ways off Buoy 11-B and 28-C. This is the typical striper fishery for this area for the past few years. The bunker action is something new that was once a normal part of striper fishing and bluefishing in western Long Island Sound.
59. Porgy fishing is heating up for anyone who wants it, catching fish around structure in 60 to 80 feet of water outside the islands.
60. Fluke fishing is decent and improving. Like everywhere else, Luke said they hit them one day and miss them the next. One guy caught 10 fluke to 8 pounds off Green’s Ledge and Pecks Ledge one day, went back the very next day and didn’t catch a fish. That’s kind of the fluke story we’ve been hearing so far. Good when it’s good and awful when it’s not.
61. Best bet this week sounds like big bass around the Newport area and out around The Block and possibly Fishers Island. Fluke will be where you find them, with the southern end of the Rhody Beaches, around Point Judith and from Misquamicut to Watch Hill looking like the best areas. There are fluke to catch in the deeper waters of the Sound off Niantic Bay, around the Thames River mouth and in along the Madison area and Hammonasset Beach.
62. For something different, you may want to get a permit and look for bluefin tuna between Newport and Block Island (but odds are they will be gone by now) or maybe even chunk up a brown shark in the Milford area.

TheDay Tim Coleman 7/15/05

1. Howard Beers, retired charter captain now working part-time at Hillyers Tackle Shop in Waterford, gave us our big fish of the week. Mike Briggs fished in and around The Race for a 55.8-pound striper and Shawn Harrison, a 3.48-pound winter flounder somewhere outside the Four Mile River.
2. Generally people are picking away at the fluke population, culling through several shorts for some to take home for supper. Blue fishing in The Race is steady, sometimes so much so it's hard for a bass to get to the lures. Porgies are all around but keep in mind some spots hold much bigger ones than others.
3. Al Golinski of Misquamicut got out on Sunday for a fluke limit along the Rhode Island beaches. He went back the next day with Marvin Spence and his wife Emme for three Rhode Island limits to 6 pounds. Six of the total weighed between 4 and 6 pounds, all caught in 40 feet of water.
4. Jack at Ocean House Marina reported the sharpies are picking away at large bass on live shad or porgies during the day on the local reefs and humps. Fluking was OK, not great, with a couple boats finding some medium keepers in 20 feet just off the beach. No weakfish or bonito yet but sea bass and scup are on most of the local wrecks and hard bottom.
5. Stephanie Cramer continues to make tripS from Connecticut to Snug Harbor to fish with Capt. Al Anderson. This week she used an 11-weight fly rod to land a schoolie bluefin presumably south of Block Island. She described it as the “biggest fishing adventure of my life.”
6. In Stonington, Don at King Cove called the fluking at Isabella the last couple days, OK, not tremendous. Striper pros on the reefs are getting fish but mostly smaller bass with the exception of Ken Zwirco who used an eel at 3 in the afternoon for a fine 49.75 pounder. Hickory shad are much harder to find now in Stonington Harbor. Shore anglers are getting schoolie stripers from the jetty behind the Monsanto plant and Stonington Point.
7. Cheryl at Shaffers sold a lot of red tubes last week for people trolling in very close to Masons Island, some of them in kayaks, for small and medium stripers. Fluking isn't bad between Gates Island and Stonington but you have to fish through shorts and dogfish depending on the day. Others in small boats had their limits right at the mouth of the Mystic River when boat traffic was lighter. Dock fishermen caught a mix of small bass, porgies and a few fluke near the Route One drawbridge. We were sorry to hear the fishing pier of sorts at the Causeway Bridge has been removed, eliminating a popular spot for kids to wet a line. This writer was out Sunday evening for six blues in The Race then six bass to 34 inches casting on the south side of Fishers Island on the flood tide.
8. The Fish Connection in Preston had reports about sporadic catches of fluke between Seaflower and Intrepid Reef. Boats had their limits one trip but the next time just shorts and sand sharks. Trollers using the tube and worm had bass of various sizes on both sides of Fishers Island. Porgies can be caught from the shore of the Thames along with small blues and schoolie stripers. You can also catch scup from the shore along the Rhode Island beaches. The Shennecossett Yacht Club will hold its Fifth Annual Fishing Tournament to benefit the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Southeastern Connecticut on July 29-31 for bass, blues and fluke. A $20 donation is required that gets you in and a free T-shirt. Anyone interested can call the shop at 860-885-1739.
9. Kevin Fiftal sent in an e-mail about a 43.9-pound bass his son Jimmy caught trolling a red tube and worm on the south side of Race Point, fishing on the Sara J out of Noank. Dad, as you might imagine, was very proud of the trip and the way 10-year-old Jimmy bested the big fish all by himself.
10. Capt. Brad Glas of the Hel-Cat had his usual report about good to excellent blue fishing in The Race last week on all but two days. There is a weekly mix of bass in with blues depending on tide and conditions. Biggest fish of the week was a striper caught by Brian Patterson of Norwich. Night trips for blues will start on Friday and Saturday, July 29 at 6:30 p.m. The Saturday night trips will leave at 6 p.m. The rest of the time they will be fishing during the day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
11. Capt. Kerry Douton at J&B observed The Race is so full of blues some days it's much harder to get through trying for a striper. Fluking is fair/steady with doormats going to those who put in more time than the average angler. Schoolie bluefin can now be trolled regularly between the Butterfish Hole and the Horns on most any good trolling lure. Canyon fishing was fair in some of the spots. One local boat nailed a 250-pound swordfish, two large yellowfin and some mahi at Atlantis.
12. Jeff Frechette sent in his e-mail about a trip north of the Ranger wreck in rough seas for two medium blue sharks along with rebaiting several times due to bluefish. They trolled on the way home, catching six small bluefin on all the different lures they had in the pattern.
13. Sherwood Lincoln of East Lyme said he took a friend out striper fishing early one day this week. They used live bait on the reefs between Old Saybrook and Niantic for four bass from 30 to 38 pounds, back at the dock by 8 a.m. He also landed nine sea bass in the eastern Sound, his first such catch of 2005 along with an 8-pound blackfish that took a small strip of squid on a high-low rig. Sherwood is well-known in our area as one of the few people to catch more than 50 stripers over 50 pounds, his skill catching these outsized bass attracted the attention of Salt Water Sportsman magazine that wants to do a story about the man and the method.

Conn Post Frank McKane 7/15/05

1. Fishing throughout the state is generally good. Saltwater anglers can catch almost every native gamefish on Long Island Sound. Over the past week, striped bass, bluefish, blackfish, porgy, weakfish, fluke and black sea bass found their way.
2. Largemouth bass action is red hot where many bass casters reported double-digit catches over the course of a day's outing. Some of the best bassing activity is coming from both the upper and lower Moodus reservoirs, Mansfield Hollow Reservoir, Ball Pond, Beardsley Park Pond, Lake Kenosia, Mamanasco Lake, Pierrepont Pond, the Saugatuck Reservoir, Squantz Pond, Bashan Lake, Lake Saltonstall, Stillwater Pond, Beseck Lake, Black Pond, Dooley Pond, Bantam Lake, the Bantam River within White Memorial, Messerschmidt's Pond, Hop Brook Flood Control Pond, Tyler Pond, Lake Stibbs, North Farms Reservoir, East Twin Lake, Highland Lake, Quonnipaug Lake, and the lakes on the Housatonic River system, including Lake Lillinonah, Lake Zoar and Lake Housatonic.
3. Smallmouth bass are equally active on Candlewood Lake, Bashan Lake, Lake Zoar, the Shepaug arm of Lake Lillinonah, Hogback Reservoir, Mashapaug Lake, Squantz Pond, the upper Connecticut River, and the Housatonic River north of the Candlewood Lake water feed tubes. Both bass species have been attacking topwater lures, tube lures, plastic worms and live minnows.
4. Striped bass and bluefish are whacking bait chunks, trolling rigs, swimming plugs, casting spoons and drift rigs, such as the tube-n-worm. Locally, anglers are enjoying these fish off Calf Pasture Beach, Sherwood Island Beach, Compo Beach, around Sunken Island, in Southport Harbor, off Penfield Reef, deep inside Black Rock Harbor, Bridgeport Harbor, around Buoy 18, Buoy 20, in the lower Housatonic River between the Merritt Parkway Bridge and the river's mouth, south of Charles Island, in New Haven Harbor and throughout the Thimble Island chain.
5. Bottom fishers are scoring well with porgy, blackfish and black sea bass. Sandworms are the best bait for all three species. The better bottom fishing is east of New Haven off the Stonington reefs, in Two Tree Island Channel, around Black Point, off Sound View Beach, the Westbrook shoreline, Six Mile Reef, the Branford Beacon, Kimberley Reef, Townshend Ledge, the New Haven Harbor breakwaters and Middleground lighthouse.
6. Now that summer is in full swing, walleye have fallen into their warm-weather patterns where they mainly feed at night or on cloudy, rainy days. After dark or just before dawn, visit Coventry Lake, Squantz Pond, Gardner Lake and Lake Housatonic for walleye. Along with the above lakes, the Saugatuck Reservoir and Lake Saltonstall are stocked with walleye. You may visit these two private reservoirs on rainy days, but night fishing is prohibited. Nightcrawlers and live minnows are the preferred walleye baits.

On The Water 7/14/05

1. Weather, mainly strong winds, was a major negative factor influencing the angling this past week. However, since the winds have died, reports are beginning to come in, but few have been really glowing. In a word, fishing, especially for fluke, has been and continues to be “spotty.” Bass fishing is better, with most shops continuing to report a pretty steady stream of keepers to 20-pound fish, with occasional bruisers. Right now the middle portion of the Connecticut coast from Guilford to Madison is apparently producing consistent catches of large fish, same thing for the south shore area of Rhode Island.
2. It happens that other weakfish reports have come in from areas to the west, including New Haven, Falkner Island and Norwalk. All of the catches were about the same size, eight pounds.
3. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said that not many people got out because of the wind over the weekend. The rentals and small boats did pretty well out by Gate’s Island to Stonington, and all came in with nice keepers.
4. There must only be a few blues around the river because no one was complaining about them getting in the way of fluke or bass fishing. The fishing is good around Mason’s Island, where locals are catching decent bass right up tight to the rocks by trolling tube and worms. Her brother Al caught a 35-incher in the river itself on a Storm Shad the other day while out goofing around. Most of the action has been with tube and worms, more so than eels lately.
5. Porgies are just getting started, but anglers aren’t having any trouble taking them when they want and sometimes even when they don’t want to see these bait stealers.
6. Rennie of The Fish Connection, Preston said the Thames has been producing small bluefish and schoolie bass. Buoy 27 has been a popular spot, but fish are being caught pretty much all the way up and down the river as they move in and out with the tides. There’s been nothing of any size, but no one is complaining about the action. No word so far on crabs in the river.
7. Rennie himself said he fished Barn Island the other day with his grandchildren and caught five stripers up to 24 inches and about 20 harbor blues in the one- to two-pound range. It was great fun fishing action for the kids. I have been seeing anglers in small boats and kayaks who are also going out and fishing around Sandy Point and inside Napatree and doing well on small blues and schoolie bass with flies and soft plastics.
8. Larger stripers are being caught on a regular basis from the depths of The Race on three-way rigs with jigs or live eels after dark. Anglers have also been doing very well fishing for bass off Bartlett Reef, Hatchet Reef and Black Point after dark. Bluefish are increasing in abundance out in The Race, with the spillover moving inshore where they seem to be pretty much anywhere and everywhere in the Sound and along the beaches. Definitely a banner year for bluefish of all sizes but dominated by the little guys that are only a year or two old.
9. The mouth of Mystic River and around Barn Island has been good for fluke. One of their regulars fishes this area frequently and has been doing well. No big stuff but anglers are happy for the most part.
10. Shane at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford told us that fluke fishing is good and improving. Many five-pound-plus fish are being caught in 75 to 100 feet off Black Point, off Isabella Beach, Fishers Island and locally in Two Tree Channel.
11. Stripers are really good, with bigger fish in The Race, Bartlett Reef and Hatchet Reef. Schoolies are all around the area and not too hard to find when the tide is running. Tuesday morning they weighed in a 55-pounder caught by Mike Briggs of Oxford, CT. He caught his monster in The Race about 1 a.m. on a live eel fished from a three-way rig.
12. They also had Sean Harrison bring in two monster winter flounder, fish of 3 and 3.48 pounds that he caught from a honey hole of his somewhere around the mouth of the Four Mile River.
13. Bluefish are all over the place and being caught in good numbers from Pigeon Rip, The Race, Plum Gut and locally at the warmwater Millstone discharge.
14. Porgies are doing well from Two Tree Channel, Red Bell #6 in the bay and around the rocks off Harkness Park on worms and squid.
15. “Q” of River’s End, Saybrook said they also saw Mike’s 55-pounder. Black Point has had some decent fluke lately. Anglers are not quite limiting out every time but are doing well on large fish. Craig Andrews, who is the guy who caught two monster fluke, one of 10 pounds, the other of 12 two weekends ago, has even been having a tough time of it out there.
16. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said that the wind made things tough. He’s weighed in fluke from 11 to 13 pounds that were caught shallow in along the shore, probably around the Hammonasset Beach area over the past week.
17. There are lots of bluefish out around the rips, with bird action over the top. All sizes from dinkers up to 14 pounds. After this weekend, with some bunker moving into the area, he expects to see even bigger blues and bass. It looks like those larger bass that were to the west in the Stratford area a week or so ago have moved eastward.
18. There have also been decent weakfish in the 8-pound class caught from Falkner Island, as well as inshore to the West Haven area.
19. Bigger bass seem to be coming in from Westbrook to Madison, with bass up to 40 pounds reported from the local reefs and rip lines. Most are being caught on eels after dark. Tube-and-worming has also been producing decent bass.
20. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford said those bigger stripers have left his area since the last report. But they have been replaced by loads of blues in 40 to 60 feet of water. The “B-H” Buoy, Buoy 18 and The Dumping Grounds near Penfield Reef are all loaded with decent bluefish. Fish caught were up to 14 pounds, and he saw blues over 10 pounds caught from the Housatonic River on bunker chunks by the crew that fishes from the shore. Small blues are in along the beaches in Bridgeport and around Stratford, so anglers casting from shore are consistently taking fish, with the oddball fish up to 10 pounds showing up. At least anglers are finally having fun from the shore because until recently it’s been pretty dead.
21. Bass fishing has been spotty, with mostly smaller bass hitting poppers and soft plastics from the beaches.
22. Burt from Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said they continue to experience some excellent fishing for bigger bass over around 11-B. Burt, who does some chartering, said he and customers caught 10 bass to 38 inches and bluefish to about 10 pounds by drifting sand worms in 110 feet of water. Burt Cooper, a regular in the shop, caught a 42-pound bass and a blue shark of 225 pounds on a weekend trip to Montauk Point, Long Island. Anthony Incerto caught a 41-inch, 29-pound bass on a chunk. Nick Kansas caught a weakfish of eight pounds while bass fishing with a sand worm.
23. They still have schools of bunker in the harbor that have bluefish and good-size bass on them. Bigger blues are coming in from the waters out around Sheffield Island, while the bunker school over in Southport is producing big bass.
24. Fluke fishing is better lately in the Norwalk area, with the channels all holding fish. Outside around Buoy 28 and Buoy 24, fishermen are catching a few more fluke, up to about 5 pounds max so far. The best action from these summer flounder is still across the Sound at Sunken Meadows near the golf course.
25. A few porgies are just beginning to move into the area and settle in around Buoy 28.
26. The best bets this week appear to be fluke fishing in the waters from Green Hill to Charleston Beach, bass around the breachways and rock piles along the entire south shore, bass around Block Island (but watch out for the dogfish) and bigger stripers in The Race, Bartlett Reef, and west to Madison. It looks like the large bass are on the move and may well reach the eastern end of the Sound within the next week or 10 days.

Norwich Bulletin, 7/11/05

1. Saltwater fishing action improved over the holiday weekend with bigger stripers and more fluke moving into the waters of eastern Long Island Sound.
2. Fluke to 12 pounds were caught off Black Point over the holiday. Hot spots are Black Point, Two Tree Channel, Mystic River, and Misquamicut Beach to Point Judith, R.I. Block Island also turned on over the past week.
3. Fishers Island is hit-and-miss at best.
4. Bigger stripers averaging anywhere from 30 inches to 30 pounds or more, have finally moved into the area. Fishers Island, The Race, Block Island, Green Hill, R.I., Charleston Breachway and vicinity and Quonny Breachway and vicinity are all producing some nice fish.
5. A 58 pounder was brought into Hillyer's Tackle in Niantic over the weekend but the angler who caught it was very closed-mouthed about where and how it was caught.
6. Bluefish are abundant with fish averaging one to two pounds or four to six pounds. The best place to find them is in the Race and around Fishers Island, but they are likely to show up literally anywhere. It's still early for this species which will continue to build in abundance throughout the summer.
7. Porgy season opened July 1 with a 25 fish-per-day and 1 1/2 -inch minimum length limits in place for the year. No one is targeting them at the present time with the big bass and fluke running so strong.

The Day, New London 7/8/05

1. We have good news and bad news about the fluke scene in eastern Long Island Sound. It has improved with some large fish landed but there are so many dogfish, at times it's hard to get through to the fluke. Or, put another way, some people's patience with landing too many dogfish wears thin and they go off to other pursuits.
2. Sherwood Lincoln of East Lyme reported one of his good friends who specializes in doormats from the eastern Sound made three trips in the last week. He got six fish total to about 12 pounds but had to catch numerous pesky dogfish to do it. There are fluke in the Connecticut River offering some respite from the dogfish but many are shorts and then there's the boat traffic on the weekend which makes drifting all but impossible. Porgies are showing up on most of the local rockpiles and many of the striper sharpies are using them for live bait for jumbo bass. Remember they must be 10.8 inches long before you can keep them even for bait.
3. Al Golinski of Misquamicut fished with his wife Emme on Sunday for two sea bass of 3.8 pounds each and a single limit of fluke along the Rhode Island beaches. He went back by himself on Monday, catching another fluke limit to 4 pounds but encountered loads of dogfish. Striper anglers are using live porgies on the Watch Hill Reefs for bass to about 25 pounds.
4. Jack at Ocean House Marina in Charlestown reported the boats that went offshore over the long holiday weekend had small bluefin on light tackle south of Block Island plus a mix of mostly blue sharks plus a thresher or mako for those that went drifting for sharks. Bass were caught off the local rockpiles on live shad or scup. Sea bass and scup are on the rough bottom now. Hickory shad and small blues could be caught along the surf line early in the morning. Those looking for bass bait caught them with a small Kastmaster with a small dropper fly or silver tube ahead of the lure. Fluking was steady the last seven days but nobody weighed in anything over 5 pounds.
5. Capt. Al Anderson of Snug Harbor fished the North Rip of Block Island from Sunday through Wednesday, roughly from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. for 20 to 30 bass per trip to 38 inches trolling squid flies, swimming plugs or jigging parachute jigs on very light wire line outfits. Offshore the fleet is starting to troll up school bluefin to about 40 pounds south of Block Island. There are a loads of blue sharks in the Fingers northwest of the Dump and over the weekend a 220-pound mako was pulled aboard a boat drifting south of the Suffolk wreck. The predicted northeast winds for the next couple days will probably not do the offshore scene much good.
6. Don at King Cove in Stonington observed the fluke boats now scoring off the Rhode Island beaches are doing so in 40 to 60 feet of water versus 20 to 30 feet the week before. Porgy action isn't bad at Latimer Light.
7. Three-waying eels at night or casting flies was the way to catch medium bass on the Watch Hill Reefs. Hickory shad can be caught around the mouth of the Mystic River or Stonington Harbor.
8. Shaffers Marina in Mystic weighed in fluke to 7.8 pounds over the long weekend, those caught off Misquamicut. Smaller boats landed some between Gates and Enders Island and on Wednesday, shore anglers from the dock below the Route One drawbridge caught a mix of fluke, porgies and blues from the Mystic River. Tube and worm and live eels are working well on small and medium bass at Ram Island Reef.
9. Allen Fee used a popper on the north side of Masons Island early on Wednesday for a 35-inch striper. Porgies are on the usual hard bottom spots in Fishers Island Sound but not in large numbers just yet.
10. This writer just got information back from the American Littoral Society about a tagged bass.
11. It was first caught and tagged off Sag Harbor, N.Y. on May 9 then recaught in The Race on June 13. A year ago I caught another tagged fish in The Race in June, that one tagged in March in Delaware Bay.
12. Joe at the Fish Connection talked about fluke to 8.8 pounds caught in close from Seaflower to Seaside and some 40-inch bass trolled up on a tube and worm on his son's charter trips.
13. Small blues can be caught along the Thames and schoolie bass landed early in the day on fly patterns that imitate a sand eel off Sandy Point.
14. Stephanie Cramer continues to travel from eastern Connecticut to fish with Capt. Al Anderson in the North Rip of Block Island. He and a fellow member of her fly fishing club, Bill Kreuger, totaled 21 stripers with the biggest 32 inches. On the way back to Rhode Island they watched a “delightful” fireworks display all along the horizon.
15. Capt. Brad Glas of the Hel-Cat reported the bluefishing in The Race was excellent with several people tossing back their excess. There were bass mixed in, waiting until the blues backed off for a good showing one trip.
16. They might be their all the time, just waiting for the bluefish to give them slack to get to the baits first? Biggest fish of the week was a fine 30.8-pound striper by Richard Desaulnier of Waterford.
17. Jeffrey Frechette sent in another e-mail, this one about a trip to the Butterfish Hole off Montauk where they landed five blue sharks and missed others that ran off with the bait but didn't get hooked. On the way home they trolled green Tuna Clones and cedar jigs for five schoolie bluefin to 33 inches and two blues.
18. Capt. Kerry Douton at J&B noted boats are hooking many more schoolie bluefin now between the south end of the Butterfish Hole out to the Ranger wreck.
19. Porgy catches were good but not excellent. Fluking is best along the Rhode Island beaches but be ready for dogfish too.
20. Blue sharks are now prevalent offshore with a few makos and threshers hooked on a weekly not daily basis. One local boat ran down to Atlantis Canyon and got into a bite of white marlin. They raised 10 of the billfish, had seven grab the baits and released one.
21. Saturday's weather forecast doesn't sound so good for long runs out unless the remnants of Cindy take a different track than predicted.

On The Water, 7/7/05

1. This week, some large bass and more consistent striper action have finally shaped up around Fishers Island, in the eastern end of Long Island Sound. There is still a large body of stripers in western Long Island Sound that will be moving eastward as water temperatures rise and force them into cooler water. These fish are chasing schools of adult menhaden, which is a good sign for the remainder of the summer, especially if some of those schools make their way eastward and take those big bass in tow. Fluke have also penetrated deeper into the Sound and are moving in closer to the shoreline as temperatures increase with the summer heat. Porgy season is open in both states, but not very many anglers are chasing them at this point with bass so abundant. Fluke are in, with big fish being reported everywhere, but at best the action is spotty – good one day, terrible the next.
2. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic told us the best fluke for the past week have consistently been caught off Misquamicut Beach and vicinity. It was a quieter than expected weekend as far as major catches were concerned, and she felt this was due to the number of boats out there that were getting in each other’s way. The Mystic River is finally producing fluke, primarily during the week when boat traffic is lower.
3. They saw a big blackfish that was caught near the dumplings by an angler who was targeting scup, which is the typical scenario for blackfish catches this time of year. Anglers fishing with clams for bait most frequently catch the blackfish.
4. Striped bass are hitting well around all the local reefs and rock piles on tube and worms or eels after dark. They didn’t see many big bass this weekend, but many mid-size 10- to 20-pounders were caught over the holiday.
5. Plug casters seem to be catching mostly bluefish, probably due to the small size of their offerings and the equally small size of the majority of blues around. The bigger bass are being caught on eels and by tube-and-worming. The Race has big bass in its depths, but many of the anglers out of Shaffer’s avoid this madhouse place in favor of calmer, more lightly fished local spots that produce nearly as well with a fraction of the effort and gas expenditure.
6. Scup fishing was so-so this weekend. Cheryl said they must not be in very thick because the fluke fishermen are not complaining about them yet.
7. Captain Jack Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames has finally been catching big stripers. Last week he was crying about how many miles he had to cover to catch a few rat bass; this week his clients caught fish up to 40 pounds, mostly on tube and worms. So far, there have not been too many scup and small blues getting in the way. These two species become a huge negative factor as the summer progresses and their numbers increase.
8. There was a bunch more bait around in the areas he was fishing. Most of it was tiny sand eels, but he also saw some sort of small herring in a few places he fished that he could not accurately identify. Lots of bait always bodes well for the near future, as well as for later in the summer, especially if temps don’t rise too high in August.
9. Fluke fishing has picked up around Seaflower Reef and over to the mouth of the Thames River. Jim Venti did well over The Fourth in the Mystic River, catching a limit of fish topped off by an 8-pounder and a couple of fives.
10. Porgies are around, but not many anglers are chasing them at this point. Jack said he caught some big ones on tubes over the weekend, and they were not so thick that they were ruining the fishing, but it probably won’t be long before they become a major pain in the butt.
11. Loads of little blues – acres of them – are all over the place, feeding largely on tiny sand eels and those little herring that are universal at this point. There are some blues running around in the Thames River, slightly larger than the one- to two-pounders dominating the scene out in the Sound.
12. Lou at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said they have been weighing in some big fluke and stripers lately. Black Point produced fluke of 10 and 12 pounds, 29 inches, for Craig Andrews over the weekend. Craig is one of the area’s premier big fluke specialists. Robert E. Lee, let’s call him “general,” caught a 10.5-pound fluke out off Black Point on Sunday. Two Tree Channel is producing nice fluke in 40 to 42 feet of water directly outside in front of the Millstone Point discharge. One angler caught a decent (20-incher) fluke off the jetty at Pleasure Beach. One problem off Black Point is that there are lots of big dogfish getting in the way for every fluke that is hooked.
13. I don’t know about you, but I’d pick through a few doggies to catch a 10-pound doormat fluke!
14. Jerry Boiseclair has the lead in the Hillyer’s Fishing Tournament that goes till July 10, with a 22-pound striper. And William Rios caught a 21.25-pounder. One angler caught a decent 30-incher off the railroad bridge Monday evening that Lou saw while taking a walk along the boardwalk. They also had a 47-pound striper that was brought in to the scales from parts unknown by a very closemouthed but proud fisherman. Groton Long Point produced three 30-inch-class striped bass on tube and worms in the middle of the day on Tuesday for a husband and wife team who went out for a short fishing/boat ride.
15. The fact that keeper bass are being caught about everywhere means that even though it’s about a month late, it appears like the migration is finally here. Problem is no one knows how long the fish will hang around or if they will push through. This will be a direct result of water temperature and food availability.
16. There are loads of small bluefish to catch out off the Millstone discharge that are mixed in with striped bass, as usual. The discharge is always a productive and interesting place to fish, but most anglers use it as a last resort when they are having a tough day out on the Sound. I know it’s saved me from a skunking more than one time.
17. Hickory shad showed up inside the bay in force recently, but they seem to be thicker more up inside the river than they do between the bridges. These little scrappers are fun to catch on light tackle, a great way to train a kid to use light tackle or flies. They also make good live, chunk and strip bait for big bass and fluke.
18. A couple good-size blackfish were caught off the rocks between the bridges earlier in the week by anglers fishing for porgies.
19. One customer came in with a half bushel of blue crabs from the Thames River. This was the first mention of crabs in the area all season. Hopefully more reports will follow over the next week or so.
20. Mark Lewchik of River’s End Tackle, Saybrook said there were a few smaller fluke starting to show up in the river with large fish being reported from drifts outside the mouth. John Clark caught a 12.05-pound fluke from parts unknown. Overall, he said the fluking has been a slow pick inshore, with no hot spots anywhere in the area other than the south shore of Rhode Island and from Misquamicut Beach to Point Judith.
21. Bass fishing is spotty around the river due to increased water temperatures, and there has not been much surface activity lately. Mark himself said he’s caught a few schoolies from the beaches in Lyme but has had to work for them.
22. There are small blues on the Old Lyme beaches with bigger fish being reported from the lower Connecticut River from time to time. Blues are more abundant than bass in The Race and Plum Gut.
23. There are many small sand eels at Harkness and along the Old Lyme Shores area. A seine haul Mark pulled over the weekend produced two-inch-long herring, big striped anchovies, silversides and small sand eels. All good stuff that will eventually attract and hold some sort of predators wherever they settle in along the coast.
24. A few sea bass are showing, but there have been no red-hot spots and no reports on blackfish at all since early spring.
25. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said they are seeing more and bigger fluke in closer to shore. Still no big doormats but fish up to four and five pounds are being talked about or brought to the scales every day now.
26. Weakfish up to 32 inches have been caught on bucktails south of Falkner Island. These fish showed up suddenly a few days ago and are doing their usual swing through the area from Madison to Milford.
27. The biggest striper this week weighed in the low 40s from Southwest and Six Mile reefs. A few customers have been coming in with torn up gear lately, an indication something big is in the area. Problem is, the foggy weather has made it difficult to get out early and later in the day.
28. Bluefish are in thick all over the place, but they are mostly small stuff. However, farther offshore out around places like Six Mile Reef, larger blues have been caught.
29. Madison, Kimberly and Reefs do have a few local anglers who target blackfish, and they have been catching nice fish weighing in at eight pounds or so. Porgies are also in around these same reefs to provide some action. Customers reported catching a few big tiderunners since the season opened, but most of the pressure has been on stripers, fluke and blackfish.
30. Blue crabs are showing up in the East River and the Hammonasset River, coincidentally with that first report from the Thames River. These may be local crabs, which means the winter and cold spring didn’t kill them all, but they may also be early migrants from the south. Normally, if we have local survival, fishermen start seeing them hanging off dock pilings and in shallow bays beginning in May.
31. Captain Morgan’s is an official weigh station for the Nor’east.Com fluke shootout on July 16 and 17. It is a regional contest that includes Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The combination of the heaviest two fluke will win the $10,000 first place prize. There are sizable prizes back to 5th place, with 6th through 15th places getting $100 per spot. Fees are $25 for the major event, and at Captain Morgan’s another $5 buys a piggyback entry at the shop for a nice fluke rig.
32. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford weighed in a few weakfish that were caught behind Charles Island over the weekend. The fish he saw were taken by a family out fluke fishing. In addition, they caught a couple of decent fluke along with the surprise weakfish.
33. He noted that the striper catches slowed over the weekend. The fish are still around but have moved out to deeper, cooler waters as inshore temperatures kick up to uncomfortable levels. The anglers fishing deep around Buoy 18, “DH” Buoy and Penfield are taking bass on live eels after dark on three-ways, drifting eels in close and by chunking. Those who pay attention to the tides and fish after the sun sets are doing well; for everyone else it’s been mediocre. A couple of Chris’s friends from Waterbury fished the south side of Fishers Island Saturday and caught 39 bass to about 29 pounds on tube and worms. Locally, the tube-and-worming has slowed down with only five or six fish per morning, nearly all under 24 inches in the local prime spots that have cooled a good deal over the past week. It’s been slow since the weekend – the bigger fish have not concentrated in this area but seem to be holding to the west and offshore.
34. Fluke action locally has been spotty, with anglers reporting that for each dozen fish caught they are taking three or four keepers.
35. Chris said a state record 7.5-pound black sea bass was weighed in on Saturday by a charter boat that fishes wrecks located somewhere out off Clinton.
36. Nick Mola from Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said those bigger bass are still moving through his area, but like off Stratford they are deep, in 80 to 100 feet of water. He noted that surface temperatures got too hot for them. George Sascala caught a 35-pounder on a fresh bunker chunk off Buoy 11-B. Anthony Macey, 13 years old, caught a 17-pounder off 28-C, also on a chunk. Seven-year-old Gage Sessell caught a 12.7-pound bluefish, and his grandmother caught a 12-pound striper off Cockenoe Island on chunks. Dino Faroni and Pete Jarvo chunked 28-C and caught fish of 41 and 42 inches, 29 and 31 pounds, along with six other keepers.
37. As has been the case along all of the Connecticut coast, fluke fishing is hit and miss around the Norwalk Islands, with fish coming from the Middle Passage and various channels but no noteworthy local catches so far this summer. The best fluke continue to come from the north shore of Long Island, where Dave Mckee caught four fluke up to five pounds from the west side of Eaton’s Neck.
38. Porgies are just getting started, but with the big bass around, only a few anglers from shore are targeting them.
39. Best bet this week will be striped bass pretty much anywhere along the entire coast. This week things look more favorable in the Sound and around both Fishers and Block islands. Fluke are also a good choice, with more fish being caught as they push inshore and into Long Island Sound with each tidal change. The waters from Niantic Bay and Black Point to Mystic appear to be ripe right now for anglers looking for a shot at a jumbo doormat, with fish to 12 pounds being caught off Black Point last weekend.

NB Hearld, B Salerno 7/1/05

1. Trout River Fishing: Best fishing is reported from Farmington, Housatonic, Willimantic, Natchaug, Naugatuck Scantic, Salmon, Quinnipiac, Pootatuck, Mill and Saugatuck rivers. Hatches include Blue Wing Olives, Midges, caddis, and pale evening duns.
2. Lake fishing is reported good to excellent at Candlewood Lake, Lake McDonough, Lake Saltonstall, Wonoscopomuc , Amos, Rogers, Cedar, Highland, Maltby, East Twin, Crystal Lakes, Beach Pond and West Hill Pond. Largemouth bass fishing is reported good from Lake Lillinonah, Upper Moodus Reservoir, Amos Mashapaug, Cedar, Highland, Rogers, Quonnipaug, Silver, Congamond, Coventry, Bashan and Bantam Lakes and Beach Pond.
3. In saltwater bluefish dominate catches throughout the Sound and in Rhode Island waters. Striper fishing remains good for schoolies in the tidal rivers. Larger "cows" in the 40-plus inch range are on the reefs and tidal rips. Dawn and evening hours are the best times to go. Live lining eels and hickory shad are the choice baits along with trolling the tube and worm combo. Typical striper haunts include the reefs off Watch Hill to the eastern tip of Fishers Island, Ram Island Reef, the Race, Plum Gut, Bartlett Reef, Hatchett Reef, Long Sand Shoal, Southwest Reef, Sixmile Reef, the reefs off Branford, New Haven Harbor, Charles Island area, Penfield Reef, the Norwalk Islands, and the Cows off Stamford.
4. Summer Flounder fishing has improved on the Connecticut side in Fishers Island Sound off Stonington and the mouth of the Mystic River, Niantic Bay, Soundview Beach, Westbrook area and New Haven Harbor.
5. Anglers fishing New York waters including Montauk Pt., Peconic Bay, Gardiners Bay, Mattituck area and Eatons Neck Point are still bringing in doormats with some weighing in the double digits.