On The Water, 9/29/05

1. This week, it looks like the bass are on the move, as reports of big fish, stuff in the 30- to 50-pound range, increased in the waters from Watch Hill to Falkner Island. False albacore have moved into the Sound and penetrated as far west as the Housatonic River. Bluefish are abundant and everywhere. Porgies are a "give me" as they have been since early May.
2. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer's Marina, Mystic said they weighed in a 49-inch, 42-pound striper from parts unknown that was caught on a shad umbrella rig over the weekend. My guess is that this fish, that 51, and the dozen 40-inch-plus bass a friend of mine caught on tube and worm Friday evening are evidence that some sort of bass movement is on. It's October and it's about time.
3. Cheryl said there are lots and lots of fish on top. Most are bluefish, but there are bass and even a few false albacore in the mix. One customer reported seeing but not catching bonito, which were more than likely false albacore at this time of the season, breaking in the waters off Latimer Point Wednesday morning. It was windy over the weekend, which kept many would-be fishermen home watching the games. Fluke are still being caught, but the scup and blackfish are taking over the scene. The anglers are fishing this side of White Rock because the New York blackfish season is closed. Sunday one angler caught his limit in a couple of hours.
4. Hickory shad and snapper bluefish can still be taken from the causeway and up inside the river. Shaffer's is selling off their rental fleet at prices ranging from $500 to $1000 for the Stonington Skiffs.
5. The Race is red-hot for bluefish on top after the winds die down in the evenings. The bass are there but hard to reach through all the choppers cruising around. The clumps have been producing mixes of bass and blues, along with the Watch Hill Reef complex, with the best action naturally occurring between sunset and sunrise. In short, the fishing must be very good because no one is complaining about anything other than the winds.
6. Jack Balint of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames, who has been chartering every day for false albacore, has been seeing and catching them consistently but said that no single place is holding them consistently. He'll see them in one place one day and on the next they are gone and busting the surface somewhere completely different. Jack said the water is still a tad too warm at 69 degrees in Plum Gut on Wednesday. He's been catching them on a regular basis but working - rather, looking - hard for them on every trip.
7. One avoidable problem that all false albacore fans face is when anglers run in on the breaking fish and bait with their boats at high speed, cutting in front of those who are doing it right by making wide circles around the fish, cutting their motors and making long, slow drifts into the fray from far enough away that their wakes don't put the bait and fish down. In doing it this way, you are more likely to get multiple casts into the fish, whereas running over them often means the fish are gone before your offerings hit the surface.
8. The procedure is to spot the fish, run well wide, up-tide and upwind by at least a hundred yards, cut the engine and drift into the fish. Running up on them full bore usually only scares the fish, and that one cast you make is often fruitless to begin with, so not only does the over-anxious angler have nothing to show for his stupidity, he also has a bunch of pissed-off fishermen in his wake. Do it like the deli line, take a number and wait your turn or, in this case, "drift."
9. There are bluefish mixed in with the albacore in most places so at times it may be hard to tell for sure what's what without making a few casts or simply sitting and watching the fish to identify that telltale circlelike tail, pointed dorsal and fast, linear surface hits.
10. Jack noted that the striped bass have been hit and miss lately, with fish around but also hard to find. He did not hear of the influx of big bass this weekend because he was fishing for tunoids.
11. The Thames River is full of small- to medium-size bluefish. As is typical until we get a cold heavy rain, the occasional fluke is being taken by anglers tossing chunks for bluefish off Buoy 27. There are also a few school bass mixed in around the edges, and word has it some much bigger stripers are in the upper river feeding on a small school of adult menhaden. In the shop they have not seen any big, locally caught fish in quite a while, but that doesn't mean they aren't around. If the bunker are there, odds are something big is eating them.
12. Matt Hillyer from Hillyer's Bait and Tackle, Waterford has been hearing of incredible numbers of bluefish throughout the entire area. Numbers are the best he's seen in many years, even better than last year, and the fish are of all size classes. The Race is chock-full of them, a situation that makes striped bass fishing difficult because they (the bluefish) get in the way by taking lures or cutting eels before the stripers ever get a chance.
13. Matt didn't get many reports from his striped bass fishing customers this weekend due to the winds.
14. Porgy fishing is excellent around all the big rock piles throughout the area. A few blackfish are showing up along the shore, and Matt expects their numbers to improve over the next six weeks. Matt saw a fish of 9.75 pounds and a second fish just a little smaller caught by a local angler on sand worms. The guy said he had to battle through the porgies to reach the blackfish. Another angler caught his limit of four 14-inch tautog off Black Point on green crabs during the flood tide. Matt looks for this to be a great fishery this fall based on the fact that blackfish were caught incidentally all summer; it is a good sign when they move inshore and concentrate around reefs, rock piles and other hard structure for the winter.
15. False albacore are showing up off Pleasure Beach. They have been there early in the mornings but have been playing hard to get, as this species is known to do. The Sluiceway and Plum Gut are holding these fish, and if the weather is better this weekend, Matt expects reports of false albies to increase in number and scope. (Later reports to the west indicate that these fish have pushed into the Sound as far west as the Norwalk Islands as of last weekend.)
16. Winter flounder fishing is closed, but they are being caught incidentally by anglers who let their sand worms sit on the bottom too long in a few spots, which bodes well for the fall flounder bite this year.
17. Mark Lewchik of River's End, Saybrook told us there is good albie fishing in the Sluiceway and Plum Gut, with sporadic reports of fish from Pine Island, Groton, to Pleasure Beach, Waterford.
18. A few bass and blues are being caught in the mouth of the Connecticut River and scattered along the Old Lyme beaches, but at best, fishing has been sporadic. One angler caught a couple of 40-pound bass off Lyme on eels during the day on Tuesday, but catches like this have been the exception rather than the rule. However, these fish could be part of that apparent body of big fish that moved in around Fishers Island late last week.
19. There are even a few fluke left in the lower river but not many and nothing of notable size.
20. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan's Tackle, Madison said there were also some bigger, 30- and 40-pound-plus bass moving into his area since the weekend, along with a bunch of mid-30-inch fish. He weighed in a 47-inch, 39-pound bass on Wednesday, which again appears to be part of this sudden influx of big fish in the eastern end of the Sound and Fishers Island.
21. There's a ton of bluefish and bait to hold them and the bass, and he said that nothing seems to be moving out of the area for the moment, so the table is set for a tremendous fall of fishing in the mid-Sound area. Blackfishing was slow since Opening Day due probably to warmer water temperatures in the mid-Sound area, but there are good numbers around and building.
22. The captain expects to see weakfish moving in with the big bass anytime now because they typically make a showing in the waters between Falkner Island and New Haven.
23. John Posh, past owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford was at the shop when we called, and he told me there are tons of small bluefish and bass up to 26 inches all around the Milford Point area to the Housatonic River and Bridgeport Harbor. There are occasional keeper-size stripers to maybe 20 pounds in the mix, but most of the fish are smaller. There have even been some false albacore along the Milford Bars to the mouth of the Housatonic River.
24. Nick from Fisherman's World, Norwalk said there are lots of bluefish on top, and they are seeing a few bonito and false albacore mixed in along the back side of the islands near Cockenoe Island, Goose Island and the Middle Passage. Anglers are catching them best on Deadly Dicks, Needle Eels and small Hopkins in a half- to three-quarter-ounce size and on flies.
25. Most of the surface frays are being made by bluefish of all sizes, but some are from tunoids. It's a matter of being able to discern the difference in their strikes in order to single out the proper schools if you are looking to catch one of those speedster albies.
26. There are a few bass around, but bluefish are the primary species for the moment. Most of the stripers that have been caught in the islands are schoolies. However, anglers trolling with tube and worms are occasionally catching fish up to 20 pounds.
27. This week looks like a good time to search for false albacore if you have the inclination to do battle with these super-fast, super-frustrating and hard-fighting little tunas. They may be anywhere from the Norwalk Islands to the breakwalls at Point Judith, but as is normally the case, Montauk Point is the best place for a really good opportunity to catch one of these fish, with the Sluiceway and Plum Gut being a distant second. Elsewhere, most anglers do more seeing than catching when it comes to these fish. If the false albacore don't cooperate or you catch your fill, it sounds like there are big stripers in the waters from the south shore and Watch Hill west to Madison. Tube and worms, 9-inch Slug-Gos and eels after dark are the prescribed lures in these areas. Block Island is big on Hab's Needlefish lures, as are the folks who fish the surf and salt ponds from Charlestown to Watch Hill.