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.