TheDay.com It's Been A Good Week For Stripers

• STRIPER FISHING WAS terrific on Sunday through Tuesday said Al Golinski of Misquamicut. Using live porgies for bait he and his partners for the day landed upwards of 12 bass into the low 40s at both the Watch Hill Reefs and The Race.
• Fluking down along the Rhode Island beaches east of Watch Hill was so-so one afternoon and very good the next time, the biggest then an 8-pounder along with a limit catch.
• Capt. Don's in Charlestown said there are about 10 people each day lining the Quonny Breachway catching scup on worms on the bottom. One of those, Marc Paruta, was reeling in a hooked porgy when a 41-inch striper grabbed it and ended up on the shore along with the porgy.
• Prior to that day Marc's dad caught an 11-pound tautog from the shore at East Beach. Small blues are in and out of the shoreline, also up in the back of Quonny Pond where they can be live lined for larger bass.
• Capt. Al Anderson made a weekday trip to Block Island for school bass but couldn't locate a single bluefish. That could also be said for offshore boats trying to locate blues for shark bait. There has been some blue sharks and a thresher or two caught south of Block in 65-degree water. Bluefin tuna from 65 to 150 pounds have been seen clearing the water while sharking but few of these were caught on a hook and line.
• Other trips during the week were fly-rod ventures in the lower part of the Salt Pond and Center Wall of Point Judith Harbor for about 20 small bass per day along with smaller blues and some fluke that didn't make the present Rhode Island limit.
• King Cove in Stonington weighed in 40-pound bass from the Watch Hill Reefs, most of them caught with live bunker or porgies. The light tackle boats are finding a mix of schoolie bass and blues feeding on sand eels some mornings between Stonington and Sandy Point, the fish and bait often given away by terns working over the bait.
• Small bluefish are in the Mystic River said Cheryl at Shaffers Marina and also up in the cove by the Mason's Island Bridge. Fluking is pretty steady with slip customers getting about two keepers per trip off the Rhode Island beaches or at times at can 7 at the mouth of the Mystic River. Three small weakfish were caught around the train bridge over the river and hickory shad caught from the docks at the Mystic River Marina.
• This writer got out on the Monday evening ebb tide, fishing with Sherwood Lincoln and Richard Wick, both from East Lyme. We landed seven stripers from 24 to 38 inches casting live eels and plastic worms around Fishers Island on a beautiful calm night that was a pleasure to be on the water.
• The hot weather early in the week kept lots of fishermen at home, said Red at Bob's Rod & Tackle. Those out tried mainly for porgies off the rockpiles on both sides of the Thames River mouth. Bunker schools are still in the river but those snagging one and then live lining it caught mainly bluefish.
• Joe Balint was minding the store at the Fish Connection with son Jack out on steady charter fishing duty. Bunker schools can be found from Trading Cove to Dow Chemical with mainly blues to 8 pounds and smaller bass under them. However, the exception was the 48-inch striper caught on a mackerel chunk fished from shore opposite buoy 27 this past Saturday.
• A few fluke were picked up on the flats by the boat house and some sea robins in the deeper water along the river's channel. People are buying large shiners for fluke drifting along this side of the sound, catching one keeper for about every four fish landed. Diamond jigs are working on blues in The Race and some smaller and medium bass at the end of the tide.
• Capt. Brad Glas of the Hel-Cat said the blue fishing remains good to very good on the day trips to The Race and the striper catches improved over the last three days. The afternoon fluke trips on Thursday through Saturday were rated as very good also. Brad wrote that fishing from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. “doesn't get any better than it was this week.”
• There will be no fluke trip on Saturday due to a Fireworks Cruise and also the following Saturday due to a commitment to a group from AA for the annual Sober Cruise. Big fish of the week was a 20-pound striper caught by Rhys Stockwell of Avon.
• Hillyers Tackle was a busy place but one of the people tending the counter took enough time to tell me there are shad in the river above the road bridge at times for either sport of bait for stripers. Snapper blues are showing up as they usually do this time of year.
• Bass catching has been steady on Bartletts Reef for those using a live shad or bunker. Some customers said they caught an easy fluke limit while others reporting fishing all day for one lone keeper. Porgy numbers are improving, that fishing right in the bay or just outside, an easy run from the local marinas and ramps.
• Lots of blues are in The Race and some smaller ones along the shore and in the Millstone discharge. You can still find a few blackfish around if that's your interest.
• Capt. Kerry Douton was at J&B Tackle in the morning after running the evening bass trip on his charter boat that returns to the dock after 1 a.m. Sharking is good off Montauk with mostly blue sharks. A few bluefin tuna were seen jumping on the surface but few if any of these took a lure trolled past them.
• Bass trips were good after dark in The Race and Valiant, plus the daytime charters had more stripers than the week before mixed in of course with the usual blues. The last fluke trip their charter boat made to Isabella netted one keeper and five shorts on the first drift before a mechanical problem cut the day short.
• Pat Abate at River's End Tackle said 5 percent of the sharpies using live bait are catching about 95% of the big striped bass right now. However, a shore angler at the DEP Pier in Old Lyme did manage to land a 40-pound bass on a chunk on the bottom on Tuesday.
• Everyone seems to be catching fluke, including some to 7 pounds along the edges of the lower channel in the Connecticut River when the boat traffic is light to moderate. Outside you stand a chance for keepers from Hatchetts down to Black Point.
• Generally the deeper you fish, the better chance for bigger fish but less numbers. Some of the fluke pros go out as deep as 150 feet, deeper than the average weekend angler associates with summer flounder fishing. (Tim Coleman The Day)