On the Water, 6/22/06

Best Bets for Connecticut & Rhode Island: The best bet this week looks like fluke fishing around Eaton's Neck in the west, along the south side of Fishers Island, or east along the south shore beaches of Rhode Island to Point Judith in the east. If big stripers are the target, find the menhaden. Start looking for giant bass between Beaver Tail and Sakonnet in Narragansett Bay, around the southwest corner of Block Island, or in the western end of Long Island Sound – wherever there are schools of adult bunker.

1. Fluke fishing seems to be improving with most shops reporting large numbers of shorts for every keeper, but that ratio is better than a week or two ago. Big stripers are moving through the region, with the best concentrations of jumbo fish in the 40-pound range being caught in Narragansett Bay, feeding on bunker schools and around the southwest corner of Block Island.
2. The south side of Fishers Island produced some better catches of fluke over the Father’s Day weekend as well. Captain Al Fee out of Shaffer’s had a fluke-fishing charter of anglers from Texas who seemed to catch mostly keepers, for a change. This crew quickly caught their 8-fish limit and went looking for some stripers. My daughter and I fished the south side of Fishers for about a half hour Sunday afternoon before the tide slacked and caught five fluke, one of which was a 21-inch keeper. A friend did about the same on Wednesday, so the ratio out here does appear to be improving as well. No matter where you drift for fluke, expect to cull through many shorts for every keeper fish. For this reason, don’t fish with “dead sticks” which usually mean gut-hooked fish. Hold the rod and set the hook as soon as a fish takes to minimize deep hooking of fish that are probably destined for release.
3. Blues are all over the place and becoming more numerous with each passing day, as this species completes its spawning activities offshore and begins to move in along the coast to feed. Most of the bluefish being reported are small fish, under 5 pounds, but there are some bigger fish to 10 pounds being caught as well. In my book a 2-pound blue is a pain in the neck, but a 10-pounder is always a thrill to do battle with.
4. Bill at King Cove Outfitters, Stonington said the reefs still have some squid on them and there are sand eels on the shoals off Napatree Point, with bass on them. Few stripers in the 30- to 40-inch range have been reported since the weekend, most of them were caught by trolling tube and worms. No monsters this week. The evening bite is the best in terms of bigger fish.
5. Reports of stripers in The Race have slowed a tad since last week. There are still fish in the 20- to 30-pound range out there to catch, especially after dark, but for some reason there wasn’t much talk coming from The Race or Sluiceway this past week. Same sort of silence from Bartlett Reef, Hatchet Reef and other small rock piles between Stonington and Niantic Bay. The Race has a good night bite all summer long for those who three-way live eels. As always there are some fish, mostly blues up to 10 pounds this week around the Millstone Outflow. It is a riled, busy spot that most anglers use as a last stop to catch a “deskunker” after a non-productive day elsewhere.
6. Most of the fluke reports, even from marinas in the eastern end of Long Island Sound are based on catches made “outside” the Sound, along the Rhody beaches, the south side of Fishers, or across “the pond” off Montauk Point. Most people are not fishing locally for fluke, despite the fact there are some fish around to catch. Hillyer's has been seeing the same 10-to-one, short-to-keeper ratio in Niantic Bay again this week. No doormats were brought into the scales since last week.
7. Everyone was talking blackfish since the Connecticut season opener on June 15. Hillyer's weighed in two 14-pound-plus monsters over the weekend. Both were caught from shore by anglers using green crabs. One came from the mouth of the Thames River, probably around the pilings some where in New London, the other from the Niantic area, probably between the bridges.
8. Striper fishing in the big rivers, such as the Connecticut and Thames River is starting to die out as water temperatures climb. There are schoolies to mid-sized bass present along with some bluefish in the lower reaches of both rivers. The fish are moving out of the river mouths and into the cooler waters around adjacent reefs and rock piles. This is causing pulses of action where a given area may be red-hot one day and dead the next.
9. The mid-Sound area, from the Connecticut River to New Haven seems to have some improved fluke catches. Blackfish fans were busy over the weekend, according to Captain Morgan’s of Madison. Southwest Reef and Cornfield Reef both produced some limits of quality fish. One boat said they did so well they were releasing anything under 6 pounds! Stripers of all sizes are in and around all the local reefs and rock piles between Madison and New Haven. No one reported catching any huge fish, but 20-pound or better bass are being caught consistently throughout this area. Water temperatures in the Sound are in the low to mid-60’s and the porgies are turning on. They are “BIG” again this year, according to “The Captain.”
10. To the west, Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle Stratford said they went from “famine to feast” this weekend. Fish of every species seemed to turn on in the waters around the Housatonic River and Charles Island. Chris said they had people weigh in quality catches of every species that could possibly be caught in the area, with the exception of weakfish. But even a few small weaks were reported early this week.
11. They weighed a 10-pound-plus fluke from New Haven, and two black seabass, both over 3 pounds that were caught by fluke drifters south of Charles Island. The bunker dunking crew of hard-core night-fishermen are consistently catching stripers up to about 30 pounds. These larger bass are being caught from deeper waters off Buoy 18, BH buoy, and Buoy 20. The key is bottom chunking with fresh bunker heads or if possible live bunker. There are small schools of big bunker spread throughout the area, with schools of big stripers feeding heavily on all of them. Where you find the bunker, there’s bass for sure. The key is finding the bait.
12. Slack tide produced three small weakfish to 20 inches for an angler who was drifting for fluke in the lower Housatonic near the breakwall. During high tide, that same breakwall produced a blackfish over 11 pounds! It all happened last weekend. The fishing is finally revving up in the western end of the Sound as the schools of adult menhaden that had been stalled in New York waters are finally moving eastward along the Connecticut coast.
13. The striper fishing is even better further to the west, in the waters from Stamford to Greenwich and in around the Norwalk Islands, where the largest concentrations of bunker are at the present time. Nick Massera of Fisherman’s World, Norwalk reports that the jumbo striped bass were all over Cockenoe Island as of mid-week. He weighed in a 38-pounder over the weekend that was caught in that area and they are consistently seeing and hearing of 20-pound-plus stripers coming in from this and other adjacent areas that are harboring schools of menhaden. The bigger bass are out in deeper waters around Buoy 11-B. Fish are being caught either by live-lining or chunking with pieces of freshly snagged bunker. Bluefish are all over the place and often coming up to the surface to blast poppers, in the mid-Sound area. A few are also filtering in along the shore and eating lures and baits intended for striped bass. The Norwalk Islands is holding some marauding schools of mid-sized bluefish, that like in other areas has occasional 10-pound-class fish mixed in. Fluking also improved in the western end of the Sound, though as usual, the best catches are coming from the north shore of Long Island, New York, around Eaton's Neck which produced two 10-pound doormats over the weekend. Porgies are beginning to feed and were being caught in 40 feet of water off of Cockenoe Island starting around Fathers Day. [On The Water, Bob Sampson, Jr.]