Westport Outfitters

• Although the hot weather continues, there is definitely a touch of fall in the air at night and in the A.M., which could mean good things for the fall fishing scene. The charters we took out all last week and into the weekend were not let down. Thursday we hosted a group of folks from First Reserve Bank of Greenwich. We trolled the Penfield area as well as locally in the islands with blues up to 13 lbs and a few keeper stripers. Although the fish are definitely stacking up on pieces of local structure, it has been our experience that they are still moving constantly after returning to some very productive areas the next day with no fish being marked.
  
• All of our trolling these days has been with lead core. I wish we had a forum board (soon to come) for customers to speak of their success stories when using marked lead core line. We can’t reiterate enough how critical it is to know just how far down your tube is on the structure and adjust when the contour of the bottom changes. If you are looking to increase your trolling catch ratios, you must try one of our lead core combos. We had one customer over hear the fundamentals being explained over the weekend and decided to purchase one himself. After a little guidance on spots we received an email the next day highlighting his success with a host of large blues and keeper stripers trolling off of Sherwood Point.
• During a test run on a sweet new Ranger 2200 Thursday as well we were into some 10-12 lb blues in the flats south of Peach Island on the Stillwater poppers. Especially during the week, if you can escape from the daily grind, do not overlook areas that may be inaccessible due to high boat traffic on the weekends, unless you really like burning that $3.50/gallon gas!! There are plenty of fish to be had out your back door.
• Earlier in the week we fished farther East of Penfield Reef for our share of keeper stripers again trolling tubes with lead core. We also had a late report from the shore guys casting top water plugs for bass of to 29 inches in the same vicinity. There is so much bait around do whatever you can to separate your offering from the pack. Try tying a teaser on after a popper to trigger a strike. The micro bunker from last week is definitely growing rapidly and will provide the necessary bait for our fall run to be productive.
  
• Speaking of fall, shop faithful Dan hooked into his first Bonito on Monday mid day and after screaming off 200 yards of line, landed a nice 8 lb fish. Congrats!! Although the fish was taken on a Bomber, our recommendation would be to stick with the never fail Deadly Dicks in various colors.
• Over the weekend, the master and wade fisherman extraordinaire Pete Viviano who is still fishing the Mill Pond hard at first light managed a few stripers up to 28 inches on silver side patterns. Who would have thought that we would still be getting healthy good sized fish from shore in the middle of August after the tremendous spring that the Mill had.
• At the time of press, Captain Chris had just come in off the water with a charter late Wednesday with a share of blues to 10 lbs and stripers, including a fat 33 inch keeper taken outside of the Norwalk Islands.
• The snappers are getting bigger and putting up a heck of a fight, get the kids out there this weekend for one last hurrah before they go back to school! Rigged combos perfect for this energetic fish starting at just $24.99!
• With the sense of fall in the air, an abundance of bait in the area, as well as some extremely clear water for this time of year, this fall could really turn out to be an epic one. Let’s all just pray that we don’t get a thrashing from a storm to screw things up!
• THE MONTAUK REPORT: The Mako fishing is excellent right now. There are lots of Makos around, but not to many big ones. Farther offshore the tuna bite has been great, but you have to get out at least 50 miles for a steady bite, and you’ll do even better over the "edge". There is nothing in closer that I have heard of this past week. We hade yellowfin up to 80lbs on Sunday on a day troll. Inshore, the fluke bite died off a bit which is most likely because of the conditions resulting from Friday’s blow. (Eric C. Johnson).