On The Water 12/8/05

1. Although a few hard-core anglers are still at it in a few locations along the coast. Conditions are now prime in the Thames River for anyone who needs a striper fix, but the fish are dinky, under 20 inches for the most part. Western Long Island Sound has the herring coming in, which usually means some big bass are on their tails, yet there haven’t been the big bass catches that should be occurring. This is due partly to the holiday season, partly to weather conditions and maybe the fact that the fish don’t seem to be where they have been in past years.
2. Don at King Cove Outfitters, Stonington heard from one angler who was on the beach for a few hours over the weekend and didn’t catch anything.
3. Rennie of The Fish Connection, Preston on the Thames said the stripers suddenly seemed to move up into Norwich Harbor and have apparently done so since the cold snap. Most of the fish are typical winter fish, averaging 14 to 20 inches, but there are always fish ranging from 28 inches to maybe even 30 pounds mixed in and probably eating the small stripers. Rennie said the “river rats” have been doing well after dark on small, narrow-profile, soft plastics, but from a small boat with a fishfinder, you can catch them all day long as well.
4. Atlantic salmon fishing for the excess breeders is still going on in the Shetucket River, but there’s been no word of anglers actually doing any catching. Rennie said the salmon fans were reporting regular catches and hookups about two weeks ago, but some of the recent hard rains and other storms have slowed things down. Plus, the action always slows down a great deal once water temperatures start getting down into the low 40s, which is where they are now, or maybe even lower, after the snow and a couple of 20 degree nights. Shallow water in rivers cools more quickly than the deep water of lakes and in the Sound.
5. Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford is open Friday 9 to 3, Sat 9 to 4 and Sunday 9 to 3 for the winter. Another indication the Fat Lady has sung.
6. Mark Lewchik of River’s End, Saybrook said he’s been hearing of a few small pike being caught up the Connecticut River in the Haddam area. These fish are apparently on the move, with the dropping water temperatures, and at least one or two of the folks he’s talked to have reported catching some fish on a regular basis. Over the weekend a few blackfish were caught from the local rock piles, but no one has been out since. Mark also heard about the improved striper catches at night up in Norwich Harbor.
7. For a different “fish story,” Mark said that a friend stopped by the shop one day after fishing in a local marina basin for schoolie bass. The basin had some skim ice on it, and apparently the bass were pushing a school of silversides up toward the surface, beneath the ice. A striper blasted into the school, crashed through thin ice with its tail and left a few unlucky silversides stranded and flipping around on top of the ice for the seagulls to pick up. A sign of the times, because this was the best fish story we heard this week.
8. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said there are a bunch of seals and plenty of herring around but no anglers going out to play with them. The captain, who always has a humorous slant on things, said the seals are catching most of the fish at the present time. And, I might add, they obviously aren’t telling him where.
9. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford said nothing much is happening other than a few schoolie stripers and some drop-down Atlantic salmon caught at the Derby Dam on the Housatonic. Excess broodstock Atlantic salmon are commonly caught in the pool below the dam after being stocked in the Naugatuck River. Anglers are catching them on some of the smaller lures they are tossing for schoolie bass such as soft plastics and smaller spoons.
10. Nick Mola, at Fisherman’s World, Norwalk said that angler activity levels have slowed a good deal in his neck of the woods, mainly because of the bad weather. The herring are moving in, which usually means a week or so of “big bass” catching. But it hasn’t happened yet to his knowledge, and it’s getting late. Nick said that his partner in the store, Rick, went to City Island last week, jigged up some herring and had a big bass on but lost it. Later on he caught a 30-incher, and that was it. A disappointment. Nick speculated that because there are still some fish being caught at Montauk Point and his contacts in New Jersey haven’t had their usual run of big stripers either, the big bass may not be here yet. The other scenario that Nick suggested is what some of the folks at Montauk Point are saying, and that is that the bigger bass for some reason are moving past the Sound and the point, about 12 miles out to sea. Who knows? The fish passing outside of Montauk Point are Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River fish. However, the fish that pass through Norwalk and the Sound are headed for the Hudson River and would not take a route outside and around Montauk Point, so there may be some truth to both of these ideas.
11. The various runs this season have been late for the most part by two or three weeks in many cases, generally messed up this year, so anything is possible. Nick and the crew at Fisherman’s World are still hoping for their annual, mid-December run of herring, complete with 30-pound-plus stripers that they are looking forward to catching for a week or so.
12. Temperatures are around 42 in the western end of the Sound, which is getting to the point where the fish will physically begin to shut down, so who knows what will happen over the next week or so?
13. Best bet this week for action is mackerel off The Causeway at Newport or schoolie stripers in the Thames River. Fish small soft plastics such as Fin-S Fish, Salt Shakers, small twister tails or Slug-Gos on enough of a jighead to reach the bottom. Best action will take place after dark from shore or boat. But from a small boat that can be launched in Norwich, simply find the schools and drift through them with jigs or troll them up with small deep-diving swimmers or small multiple-hook spreader rigs.
14. Freshwater anglers may want to look for broodstock Atlantic salmon in the Shetucket or Naugatuck rivers, or pike in the Connecticut River in the Haddam area and around any of the larger backwaters and inlets.