TheDay: Canyon's A Hot Spot For Tuna

• For those with boats large enough to make the run and check books hefty enough to afford the fuel bill, the fishing has been good all along the continental shelf from Block Canyon to Hydrographer said Capt. Kerry Douton of J&B Tackle. The crew on the Joyce Ann fished Block Canyon for a wahoo, yellowfin and rare, long-billed spearfish. The Bluefin went out to the same area where they landed six albacore, two yellowfin and a wahoo.
• Capt. Al Anderson spent a lot of his time this past week catching bass and blues around Block Island in the morning, trolling at the North Rip on the first part of the flood tide then Old Harbor Point and Southeast Light. After that it was time to head offshore. On one trip they chummed up four medium to large blue sharks around 14500 X 43773. The next time they went back to the same area where they landed a 100-pound mako after it jumped and broke the first two lines it grabbed. In the process though one of the broken lines became entangled in a third rod. They reeled in the line, retied it to one of the broken lines and landed the fish. On Saturday they trolled down to 14650 X 43640, catching six mahi around the high flyers but nothing on the way back to Montauk.
• Jeff Frechette sent in a dated e-mail about a trip to the canyon on July 25-26. They landed a small mako at night then at daybreak lost a presumed bigeye on a 50-pound rod. The next high point of the morning occurred when they had five hits at once, catching two very big long fin albacore but losing three of the other fish in the melee that ensues when you have multiple strikes and the crew is working hard to clear the lines and cockpit. They also caught another albie on the troll plus a wahoo that fought all with speed but very little pulling power, unlike a tuna.
• Al Golinski of Misquamicut, enjoying his first summer of retirement, took his brother-in-law out for fluke on Sunday down off the Rhode Island beaches for a limit catch to 4.8 pounds. He also said his friend Capt. Ben DeMario used live scup on the Watch Hill Reefs on Tuesday for a banner catch of larger striped bass.
• Capt. Don's Tackle in Charlestown reported the water outside the Quonny Breachway full of small and medium bass and smaller blues from Monday through Wednesday mornings. Lots of scup are on the all the rockpiles but fluking doesn't seem to be drawing the number of boats it did early in the summer.
• Bill at King Cove was busy with summer customers when I called, taking the time to say the bass on the Watch Hill Reefs are on the surface as times, feeding on tiny bait that makes them hard to fool with standard casting lures. Some of the fly rodders however did well, catching as many as 40 bass in one day, with a very small pattern called a Glass Minnow fly.
• Those along the Rhode Island beaches seem to be working harder now for what keeper fluke they are bringing back plus he had a report on Tuesday about keeper fluke caught in the channel of the lower Pawcatuck River, those fish in close perhaps after all the sand eels around.
• Cheryl at Shaffers in Mystic said their customers brought back about two to three keeper fluke per person over the past weekend, those caught mainly at Isabella Beach. Bass catches were fair, not great, the fish feeding on something very small and turning up their noses at most surface plugs thrown their way.
• Big porgies can be caught around Latimer Light but the large blues that hung around Middle Clump this time last year are missing in 2007. You can though catch much smaller blues in the Mystic River, a favorite with kids or people in small boats on a windy day.
• Bob's Rod & Tackle called the fluke catches iffy right now as we head into the dog days of summer with muggy weather predicted for the next week. One day his people will catch keepers along the Connecticut shore but the very next it seems like they land only shorts.
• Tube and worm trolling just off the beaches on either side of the Thames River is producing small and medium stripers. Small bass and bigger blues were chasing bunkers at times up around Stoddard Wharf.
• Joe at the Fish Connection got reliable reports about bass of 47 and 48 inches caught from shore opposite buoy 27 in the upper Thames on cut mackerel. He also heard about some bass from 25 to 31 inches landed on bunker snagged and live lined right in Poquetanuck Cove. One in five fluke is a keeper said Joe, that from people drifting anywhere from off Harkness over to Intrepid Rock. The first bonito of the summer were sighted off Watch Hill on Monday.
• A 52.16-pound bass was weighed in on Tuesday morning, according to Hillyers Tackle Shop. The next boat to come in had bass of 30 and 25 pounds for the scales. On Wednesday morning, it was a striper of 31.8 pounds, all caught around Bartletts on a live eels at first light. Fluke to 7 pounds were landed in the deep water outside Black Point.
• On Wednesday a school of hickory shad moved into the Niantic River and were still biting at 8:30 a.m., usually they stop hitting when the sun gets higher in the sky. Schools of small bunker are drawing both short and keeper bass way up river around Golden Spur. Big porgies are in the fishing picture on all the Niantic Bay rocks but to date this has been a poor summer for sea bass.
• Mark at River's End said schools of peanut bunker showed up along our beaches from Meigs Point all the way up to Niantic with schools of smaller blues and schoolie bass chasing them around at times. Chunking for larger blues in the lower Connecticut River was a lot slower than prior, presumably due to increasing water temps.
• You can find keeper fluke right inside the river along the channel edges when boat traffic is at a low roar. Bonito were sighted off Weekapaug and Race Rock for the first time this summer. Crabbing is just OK, with more shorts than keepers this week. (Tim Coleman)