TheDay 10/7/05

• As good as the surf fishing was last week, this time around it's almost the opposite. Summer-like weather and high pressure produced flat calm seas that produced little or nothing during the day and about the same at dusk. Many Connecticut fishermen I spoke didn't even get a hit after driving to the Rhode Island beaches to fish at few hours as the sun went down. About the brightest spots were some blues and schoolies caught at daybreak on the sand beaches and some larger bass one night from the rocks east of Quonny Breachway.
• Todd Brown of Groton Long Point sent an e-mail about a surf trip to Block Island with friends Fred DeGrooth, Mike Burns and Mike Hardesty. They landed a few fish on live eels to 40 inches but Todd wrote, “the weather was too perfect — no wind or waves.” That's usually a recipe for poor surf casting.
• Al Golinski of Misquamicut took his boat out on Sunday to the Watch Hill Reefs for a decent catch of bass to 32 pounds on live porgies. The next day he and his wife Emme landed 20 sea bass off Charlestown then stopped on the reefs once more for a pair of 25-pound stripers.
• Capt. Don's in Charlestown said a couple locals had what might be the last catch of fluke for the year. They fished in 30 feet off Quonny for both shorts and keepers. You can find sea bass and large porgies on the ledges off the same town in 70 to 80 feet of water and blackfish on the inshore rock piles and some smaller ones from the shore along the Quonny Breachway rip-rap.
• Don at King Cove in Stonington weighed in bass to 39 pounds last week, caught mostly on the reefs trolling the tube and worm or drifting live eels. Blues are part of the catch on most days. Black fishing is on the increase at Ragged Reef, Latimer Light and the rock piles off Napatree Point. You might also land a keeper striper trolling the red tube and sandworm combo off the East Breakwater of Stonington.
• Shaffers in Mystic weighed in a 9-pound blackfish over the weekend. During the week John Medvec of Newington took 45 minutes on Wednesday to land a limit. Larry Strickland and Sean Ross landed a mess of blues on Wednesday then saw some albacore off Napatree but overall catches of the popular albies has been way off from a week ago. Cora Trimble of Mystic caught a 38-inch striper on a plastic shad around Wicopesset and the rental boats continue to limit out with large porgies and a few accidental fluke that grabbed porgy hooks.
• Jack over at the Fish Connection reported people landing some 8-10-pound bluefish and a few better stripers in Norwich Harbor. He surmised there might be some large bunker there holding those fish in that spot. He also had reports of stripers as small as 11 inches caught from the river as well as porgies and a few fluke. Albies are few and far between. His son Jack's charters are looking hard and long for what fish they are seeing. You should be able to find blues most mornings some place between Seaside and Groton Long Point.
• Stephanie Cramer sent in her regular report about landing a little tunny on her fly rod in the Mud Hole on trip with Capt. Al Anderson and having a ball with lighter tackle and larger snapper blues right in her backyard along the upper Thames River.
• Blue fishing in The Race was good on all but two days last week said Capt. Brad Glas of the Hel-Cat. He called the blues voracious and stripers around on the right part of the tide — for anglers with the right feel to catch them. Big fish of the week was a 17-pound bass caught by Xavier Mills of Groton, a young man given the fishing trip for a birthday present. Xavier lives right up the street from the dock.
• Capt. Howard Beers at Hillyers Tackle observed that the blackfish season started with lots of smaller fish as it usually does, along with some catches of keepers, all within short running time of the mouth of the Niantic River. Blue fishing in The Race is still good overall but maybe not terrific seven days per week. Bass are best at dawn, dusk and after dark. Rob, the albie expert who works in the shop, said that fishery has been very disappointing of late.
• Capt. Kyle Douton at J&B Tackle said their charter boats had a decent week with bass, fishing after dark with eels on the slower tides and bucktails on the faster ones. Roger, a store employee, had a 13-pound blackfish at Latimer, that fishing better to the east than the rock piles right around the bay. Offshore there is still a troll bite for albies and yellowfins on the flats north of Block Canyon or on the way over to The Dip to set up for the night chunking bite.
• Jeff Frechette sent in an e-mail about his last offshore trip on Oct. 1 and 2 on the “Maggie B” out to The Dip. They trolled a 55-pound yellowfin before dark then around 10 p.m. they landed a legal swordfish and another 55-pound tuna then two more yellowfin and some missed strikes for the next hour or so. This was all with bait, both butterfish and squid and thanks to a new Hydroglow fish light to attract both squid and tuna. Things died down after that but around 5:30 a.m. they caught two more yellows to 70 pounds on diamond jigs and lost four fish on bait on 30-pound mono. On the way home they broke out the troll gear for four long-fin albacore on green/yellow tuna clones.
• Sherwood Lincoln and Craig Andrews took a trip Wednesday from Port Niantic to the Rhode Island shore for about 50 sea bass to 4.8 pounds on various wrecks and rock piles from Watch Hill to Charlestown. On one wreck they hooked a legal codfish then had a bluefish bit the tail off it as it was being reeled up. Earlier in the week Sherwood fished his deepwater lumps off Black Point with live porgies. The blues kept biting the baits in half so he left the heads in the place and caught four bass on them.