On The Water, 10/6/05

1. If fishing were a movie, it would have had mixed reviews ranging from glowing to “raked over the coals” this past weekend into the middle part of this week. More shops reported a slow-down or sporadic action from bass, false albies and even bluefish due to the weak tides, calm bright conditions and the super-high pressure system that has dominated the region for the past five or six days. However, blackfish and scup action remain excellent pretty much across the board. The weather has been too warm, sunny and “bluebirdish,” it’s like the fish are on strike when it gets like this for too long.
2. Bill of King Cove Marina, Stonington sung a different story from most of the other places we talked to this week. He told us that they had a fair amount of blackfish coming in to the shop over the weekend. On Wednesday, two customers limited out in a short while on fish to about six pounds.
3. Over the weekend, primarily on Saturday, some bonito and albies were caught off Montauk Point and the Sluiceway. Kevin from the shop was over at Montauk Point on Tuesday and said there were tons of albies busting around but too many boats that kept getting in the way and spooking the fish.
4. Pretty steady reports of decent catches of bass, blues, albies and blackfish, both over and since the weekend. Many of the bass are schoolies, with the best one they saw tipping the scales to 38 pounds.
5. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic also echoed the fact that there are lots of happy anglers, many of whom are coming in with limits or near-limits of blackfish. They weighed in a 9-pounder on Saturday. Ellis Reef, North Hill, White Rock and Latimer Reef have all been producing. One customer limited out in 45 minutes on Sunday. The oddball catch this week was a 3-pound triggerfish, caught by a surprised porgy fisherman. The porgies have been big but not quite so many this week.
6. The only complaint has been that there are too many blues and that they are getting in the way of the striped bass. Eels don’t stand a chance unless they are fished well after dark, and even then many are being chopped. Cora Trimble caught a 38-inch bass Tuesday at Wicopesset on a storm shad in the middle of the day. Larry Strickland and Shawn Ross of Mystic said they ran into an acre of bluefish off the reefs and saw albies leaping from the water off Napatree Point earlier in the week. Snappers are still around and in abundance. Overall, Cheryl said that everyone who wets a line has been catching something lately.
7. Captain Jack Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames said the slow tides, heat and bluebird conditions and extremely high-pressure weather have been making the fishing spotty, at best. He’s been chasing albacore, and they have been running hot and cold. He boated 18 albies on Saturday but only one on Sunday, which has been a typical scenario. He noted that all of the local light-tackle charter guys he is in contact with have been having the same difficulty.
8. Because the tides have been so slow lately, there have been acres of bait south of The Gut and Sluiceway at the top of the tide because it wasn’t running strong enough to pull them all the way into the Sound, a situation that creates the usually productive fishing in these prime areas along the mouth of the Sound. Temps are still up to 67 in The Gut and Sluice, which Jack says is a tad too warm for these fish. He noted that at about 60 degrees the albies go nuts until it drops to about 52, then they are gone, almost overnight.
9. Race Point has had sporadic showings of blues, bass and albies but nothing you can rely on. The false albacore are also showing up top anywhere along the coast from Pleasure Beach to the Quonny Breachway but not on any predictable basis. Jack recommends blind-casting in the right spots because the fish are not necessarily up top and visible, and for some reason, even the birds have been shy for the past few days.
10. The Thames River has also been a slow pick lately, with bluefish dominating the action.
11. Matt at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford told us that bluefishing is really good all over the place. Really big ones (10 pounds or better) have been caught on a regular basis in The Race, Pigeon Rip, Race Rock, Plum Gut and Bartlett Reef. Diamond jigs, bucktails, Kastmasters, poppers and chunks are all working well.
12. At sunset and sunrise big bass have been taken after dark in the Sluiceway and Bartlett Reef. Even Harkness Park has been hot. The lower Thames and Niantic River are also producing stripers, with the bass feeding on hickory shad between the bridges in Niantic. Live eels are the best bait. Shad bodies, Zoom Super Flukes, and tube and worms are taking most of the bass they see and hear about at the shop.
13. Blackfish have started and appear to be shaping up nicely. They weighed a 13-pounder just after opening day last week. Big humpback porgies have been taken at the Bell Buoy 6 and White Rock in the bay and also off Black Point.
14. False albacore are spotty at Pleasure Beach and the Sluiceway, with Deadly Dicks and Crippled Herring being the lures of choice among most anglers. At Pleasure Beach the albies have been around most days but often are out of range of the crew who are fishing from shore and difficult to catch for those outside chasing them around in boats.
15. Pat Abate of River’s End, Saybrook said their weekend was busy with many anglers in the shop, but the talk of fish wasn’t as active as it might have been. Pat noted that the fish are concentrated but not easy to find, but when you do, the fishing can be excellent.
16. The albacore were around, but hard to catch over the weekend and nearly non-existent since the weekend.
17. The bluefish have been running strong in the river and around the mouth of the river all week and over the weekend. The Saybrook Town Beach has been producing blues and school bass pretty much every evening. There are smaller fish in the river and slightly larger bass up to 10 pounds along the Lyme Shores. Blackfish reports have been good, as have been the porgies, which seem to be thick around every rock pile in the region.
18. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison summed it up in a word – bluefish. He said they are all over the place and acting like they haven’t eaten for a year. From Hammonassett Beach from shore, out around Six Mile Reef, Kimberly Reef and the other rock piles in the area to Falkner Island, the action has been incredible. They are of all sizes, with some real tackle busters up to 15 pounds tearing up rods, reels, gear and people for the past week.
19. Blackfish action picked up since the season opener, and the scup are still hitting well just about anywhere an angler might want to drop a baited line. A few more bass are moving into the area, but they are not the real big stuff that should be showing up shortly.
20. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle in Stratford, said they were catching nice bass to about 35 inches up in the Housatonic River every night all last week, but it died out when the high pressure settled in over the weekend. Now there are smaller bass and mostly bluefish.
21. Two false albacore in the 8-pound range were caught Monday night off Bridgeport Harbor on a Super Strike. These speedsters have been seen from the mouth of the Housey to Charles Island, but no one is catching them.
22. Blackfish have been on and off, with fish up to 7 pounds being brought in to the scales since the weekend. Water temperatures are 72 to 73 degrees off the river, still a tad warm for blackfish. Notice how the reports to the east, where temperatures are in the high 60s, are better than in the west where they are torrid. This situation will do a turn about some time next month.
23. A few anglers are taking walleyes in the two- to three-pound range from the Saugatuck Reservoir on shiners. Like everyone else, Chris believes that the cooler weather this weekend should turn things on even more in these parts.
24. Burt from Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said they are seeing bonito and false albacore ripping around the islands, along with bluefish and a smattering of small schoolie bass. These fish are feeding pretty much exclusively on peanut bunker. He said that school of adult bunker that had been holding fish earlier in the season was now up inside the Norwalk River, but nothing much was chasing them, probably because temperatures are too hot for any major marine predatory fish.
25. Once in awhile the bass that anglers are catching range up to 32 inches, but most are small schoolies. They have been catching keepers at Calf Pasture Point Beach on chunks of bunker intended for blues. Boat anglers are still catching bluefish out at Buoys 28C and 11B on chunks. The three-way worm bite on bigger bass has slowed due to the warm water temperatures.
26. There are a few blackfish at George’s Rock and Copps Rocks that range on up to 6 pounds, surprisingly in some very shallow water despite the heat.
27. It looks like at least some of the false albacore that had been providing angling opportunities in the eastern end of Long Island Sound are now ripping around in the bathtub-warm waters of the west for the time being. There is no single spot, other than perhaps Montauk Point, where you can go and expect to find albies busting on top. Everywhere else is a hit and miss deal. Bluefish are the best bet right now, but if a storm blows through the region as predicted by the weatherman, we could see everything light back up like it did two weeks ago when the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia passed by us off the coast.