Norwich Bulletin

• Freshwater: Bass: Fishing is in its typical summertime mode with the best action taking place from dusk through dawn and on cloudy, windy, rainy days when the barometric pressure is dropping.
• Pike: This is not a good time to fish for pike for two reasons. Water temperatures are so warm, they may not be active, even when conditions are favorable. Because of those warm temperatures, catching a big pike may be hazardous to its health because of the stresses it will endure from fighting in warm, oxygen-poor water.
• Walleyes: No one is talking much about walleyes despite the fact they are being caught in Beach Pond, Coventry Lake and, to a lesser degree, Gardner Lake. The best fishery in this half of the state is lake Saltonstall in East Haven.
• Saltwater: Tunoids: Don Michaud of King Cove Marina said the first reports of bonito off the Rhody Beaches came in over the last week. A regular customer, Don O’Neil, caught his first bonito on a fly rod off Misquamicut when some fish surfaced and chased bait near their boat.
• Fluke: It has always has begun to slack off a tad during August, partly because of heavy fishing pressure from rod-and-reel anglers and the fact the August trawling quota is being sucked up off the beaches.
• Striped bass: River’s End said striper fishing off the reefs in their area appears to be slowing in the areas around the mouth of the Connecticut River as resident fish begin to move north with our waters warming up over the last week.
• Porgies: They are all over the place, reaping havoc in some areas on tube and worm striper fishermen and fluke baits. We landed a 13-incher off Fishers Island last week on a tube-and-worm rig intended for stripers.
• Black sea bass: Sea bass catches are increasing in frequency with more reports of larger fish coming into area shops. King Cove weighed a 6.56-pounder that was caught off the Rhody Beaches.
• Bait: There’s all sorts of bait out there to draw and hold fish this season. There are still adult menhaden in the Thames River, Niantic Bay and the lower Connecticut River. Some hickory shad have appeared between the Bridges in Niantic.