On The Water, Bob Sampson, Jr. 5/26

1. Winds, rain, doom and gloom have dominated the fishing scene since last weekend. Since that time a combination of bad reports and bad weather has kept many anglers off the water. For this reason, good, firsthand angling reports were sparse.
2. Captain Jim White of Quaker Lane Bait and Tackle, North Kingstown told us no one has been out since the bad weather blew into the area. He said that prior to the nor’easter, fishing for striped bass of all sizes had been pretty good up inside Narragansett Bay. Right now, with the difficult winds and weather conditions, anglers are pretty much staying home. He expects the fishing to pick up quickly once this system blows out of the region.
3. Rob at Saltwater Edge, Newport said, “If you don’t mind getting wet and beat up, the fish are around to catch.” He and the guys from the shop fished the upper bay successfully until the miserable weather hit late Tuesday. There are also some bass being caught from First and Second beaches. He had gone out fishing the previous two nights and caught some decent-size bass that weighed up into the midteens by casting heavy plugs around solid structure. Rob noted that he heard of a 45-pounder that was weighed in last week but could not personally verify this catch.
4. When asked about the water temperature changes resulting from the recent cold weather assault, he said that on Tuesday night it was warmer to the touch than the 40-degree air and guessed it was in the low 50s, possibly higher.
5. Captain Andy Dangelo of Maridee Bait and Tackle, Narragansett, R.I. said nobody is going out on the water this week due to the winds, rain and bad weather forecasts. A couple of his hard-core local anglers came into the shop this week and reported that “nothing was really happening,” due primarily to the horrid weather and high winds, which have made casting and working baits and lures more difficult.
6. Roe at Breachway Tackle, Charlestown said the cold and rain have pretty much shut down the worm spawn activity at near by Ninigret (Charleston) Salt Pond. The worms were coming out every night after the string of sunny days a week or so back, but the sudden drops in temperature resulting from the most recent string of cold nights, intermittent cold and chilling rains have pushed the temperatures back below their comfort levels. For the time being, the spawns are on hold. Odds are, like last year, the evening after the next couple of hot, sunny days should bring the worms back out to play and now there are plenty of stripers around for them to attract.
7. Captain Don of Captain Don’s Tackle, Route 1, Charleston, R.I. reported that the Quonny Breachway is so dirty from all the wind and strong tides that it’s been difficult to fish. I can personally vouch for dirty waters in this area. Last Sunday a friend and I did some fluke fishing off Misquamicut Beach. There was so much junk on the bottom and floating in the water that we could not keep our lines clean long enough to do any damage.
8. Captain Don did say that he’s sure there is still some “stuff,” as he put it, in the back end of the salt pond to catch, but no one has been launching their boats and trying. When the wind dies, those anglers who go out and fish are catching a few bass wherever they have been fishing, but the numbers and quality has not been anything to get excited about lately. But this is a situation that can change for the better, literally over night this time of year, when all the major species are on the move.
9. He said that he’s been seeing tons of blackfish around the rocks at the Quonny Breachway and speculates that they are probably doing the same thing around all the local breachways, rock piles and jetties. Note that the Rhode Island blackfish season is open, but Connecticut is closed. Connecticut anglers who catch blackfish in Rhody can not be caught possessing this species, even if they were caught legally across the border.
10. Cheryl Fee of Shaffer’s Marina, Mystic said that a customer caught their first official bluefish in the lower Mystic River over the weekend, but sadly, that was the greatest angling event she’d heard of, due to the lousy weather reports.
11. It blew hard on Saturday for most of the day, but winds moderated for Sunday morning through the early afternoon. A friend and I made a fluke fishing tour, testing four of our favorite spots from Long Island Sound to Misquamicut Beach, and back out to the south side of Fishers Island and didn’t land a single fluke. My buddy had two live squids that he jigged up that were quickly attacked by fluke after they were sent to the bottom wearing a pair of tandem hooks. Both fish were missed.
12. All we caught all day were a pair of sculpins (sea ravens) and three of those dam skate. It’s a pretty sad day when I have to get deskunked by a stinking, miserable, spiny skate. I certainly hope this will be my penance to the angling gods for a while. Like many other fishermen, I’ve been abused by about everything I have targeted, both in fresh and saltwater so far this season, and I’m tired of it!
13. Cheryl noted that those hearty anglers who have been fishing when and wherever they can have been catching small stripers, pretty much everywhere, but nothing of note since that 20-pounder from The Race two reports ago.
14. There have not been any fluke caught so far off the Mystic River area, but she feels it’s more from a lack of trying than lack of fish because there are plenty of squid in the area.
15. Water temperatures have been fluctuating wildly due to the constantly changing weather, a factor that will turn fish off and on and occasionally drive them from a given area when temps drop below their preferred comfort levels. Al Fee was fishing Friday evening and said the water in the river was warm, 68 degrees in the lower river. Saturday morning, after a very frigid night and a tide change, the waters were only in the high 40s.
16. Rennie at The Fish Connection, Preston told us that there are still “tons of little dink stripers still hanging around in the (Thames) river.” There have not been many reports of keeper-class, or even 20-inch-plus, fish being caught lately. There are supposedly lots of little rats up inside the Pawcatuck River, as well, with fishing reportedly pretty good in the cove near the cemetery. The action at the Greenville Dam has slowed down a good deal lately. They (the guys at the shop) believe this is because many of the baitfish, namely alewives, seem to have left the area already. As we can pretty well be assured, there will not be many blueback herring or menhaden entering the river at this point in the season to draw any new slugs of larger striped bass up into the river, like they used to a decade or more ago.
17. Dennis, one of the guys who works at Fish Connection, fished Montauk Point for fluke with Joe Balint over the weekend and experienced a very successful outing. They caught their limit of beauties that averaged in the five- to six-pound range. However, locally, on this side of the Sound, fluking has been very slow. But again, there have not been many boats fishing in close to Mystic or Niantic to catch any fish that may be present. Most have been making the longer runs to Montauk or Fishers Island. The Stonington area is currently loaded with squid, which bodes well for when the fluke finally make their way across the Sound to this side.
18. Lately, Rennie has been fishing for both largemouth bass and trout on a regular basis. The Shetucket and Yantic rivers were both stocked this week, so the fishing is easy for the moment, especially with the cool, dreary conditions. Many years in the past, area trout are parboiling by this point in May and the fishing has begun to slow. This spring appears to be running super cool, like last season, which means (unless conditions and trends suddenly warm up) anglers can expect decent trout fishing action from area lakes and rivers well into June again this year.
19. The trout that have been stocked this year are of much higher quality than in the past, said Rennie. He has been consistently catching trout that average 11 to 14 inches from both places this year, including a tiger trout that was 13 to 14 inches during Tuesday’s trip to the Shetucket River. A mutual friend he ran into on the Shetucket told him he’d caught and released about 30 fish already that day. The trout have been hitting well on dry flies and small olive green emergers.
20. Rennie has not seen any largemouth bass nests yet in his fishing exploits to date, which is disconcerting to me. He has fished Gardner Lake, Aspinook Pond and Ashland Lake over the past two weeks and has not seen a fish on a nest in any of them. Most years by late May, water temperatures are in that 62- to 65-degree range that is required before the bass will ripen, make their circular beds and spawn. Some anglers have reported seeing largemouths on their beds as far back as three weeks ago, so maybe the bass in these places were already done spawning when Rennie fished them. At Mohegan Park, where I go twice a week with my science classes to monitor these sorts of things, I did not see a bass sitting on a nest until last Thursday, and that fish was gone by Friday morning due to the fact that temperatures dropped overnight from 66 to 60.1 degrees. The Quinebaug River was only 58 degrees earlier this week, according to one report, which means the bass are probably not spawning there, either.
21. When temperatures rise and fall as they have been for the past two weeks, the bass move onto nests late in the day when temperatures rise and leave overnight, leaving any eggs they may have dropped unprotected. This cold trend may force them to drop their eggs under these poor conditions, which could lead to very low recruitment of young bass from this spring’s spawn, throughout the region. The bass definitely need a few sunny days to help bring their spawning areas up to that 62 to 65 degrees they prefer to spawn in. It looks like either bass in many lakes are still not on the beds or have not laid their eggs under these poor conditions. Either way, the bass numbers will be down four or five years from now when the lack of successful spawning will show up at the end of our collective lines.
22. Note to would-be Thames River anglers for the Memorial Weekend, the Dock Road Launch in Montville will be closed starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 26, through May 31.
23. Matt at Hillyer’s Bait and Tackle, Waterford said, “It’s almost winter. I’ve never seen a May as bad as this one. I keep saying it’s gotta get better and it keeps getting worse.” He also said, “The thing is we have fish and guys champing to get at the fluke off Montauk Point and the bass that are moving into The Race and area reefs right now, but due to the weather and poor forecasts, are not going out fishing.” He noted that many anglers don’t even have their boats ready and in the water, due to the string of wet, miserable weekends the region has endured to date.
24. Up until late last week, before the storm, the winter flounder action locally, primarily up inside the Niantic River, had been the best he’s seen in years. Blackfish are around and being caught, but must be released due to the closed season.
25. Pat Abate of River’s End, Saybrook mentioned that earlier in the week, specifically Sunday and Monday, brought some good fluke catching action off Montauk Point. He said the shop weighed in fish up to 10 pounds. All the reports showed a big improvement in fishing for this species since last week when catches were spotty. This time around, everyone was limiting out and had a couple doormats on the boat to show for their efforts and investment in gas. Reports indicated no single hot area; the boats were all spread out along the south side from the point to the town beach and probably drifting in 30 to 50 feet of water.
26. The striper fishing earlier in the week in the lower Connecticut River produced fewer but larger stripers. Not so many smaller fish as earlier in the season. This week the average catches are running 20 to 24 inches, with a few fish running up to the 40-inch range. Bass are hitting topwater on Slug-Gos and jerkbaits.
27. Captain Jerry Morgan of Captain Morgan’s Tackle, Madison said that lots of bass are moving all over and through the Madison/Guilford area. Wind and rain have made fishing difficult but not impossible for those who don’t mind donning rain gear and taking a pounding. He noted that larger bass in the mid-30-inch to high 40-inch range have become more consistent in catches. There have been some 30-pound-plus fish, but the catch along the shore is still dominated by smaller schoolies in the rivers and along the rocky coastline.
28. Fluke are improving in numbers but nothing great yet. The cool miserable weather has all but shut down the close-to-home fluking. A few fish are in the area, but no one is doing much fishing for them at the moment.
29. Customers have been catching some nice browns from the Hammonassett and West rivers, and bragging to him about trout into the 20-inch-plus range. He’s also been seeing and hearing about decent largemouth bass in the four to six pound range. The bass he’s been seeing live at the shop appear to be spawned out, with nothing full of eggs.
30. Chris Fulton, owner of Stratford Bait and Tackle, Stratford told us that a couple of his anglers did well on fluke in New Haven Harbor, as well as across the pond off Mattituck, Long Island, by fishing in-between the rain and wind squalls.
31. Lately, he noted there have been some big, tiderunner weakfish cruising off West Haven sandbars, which usually means they may also be found on down the shoreline to Charles Island and the Milford Gulf. John Posh, the previous owner of this store, caught and released a potential fly-rod tippet class world-record weakfish earlier in the week, when he landed a monster 11.56-pound tiderunner off Penfield Reef. Other than this noteworthy catch, he said there have been reports of a few bass, nothing big, caught in the Bridgeport area. Bluefish are showing here and there, but no consistent reports coming in of large concentrations at this point in the season.
32. Nick at Fisherman’s World, Norwalk told us that a regular customer, Andy Trister, caught four keeper fluke to 8 pounds off Mattituck last Thursday before the weather began to turn sour. Otherwise, there has not been too much in fluke fishing reports generated since the weekend. He said that a few boats were catching small bluefish in the Middle Passage off the Norwalk Islands on poppers and swimmers on Tuesday, which is a good sign for the near future.
33. Right now, the big news is the fact that most of the large stripers are still being caught to the west, around Mamaroneck and Rye, New York. A few bass have also been caught in the Greenwich area. Nothing really impressive has been caught locally. Nick noted that most of the bigger fish are still to the west. The best catch he heard of this week was of a long, big-headed, skinny 47-incher that only weighed in at 31 pounds off Sherwood Island State Park on a bunker chunk last weekend.
34. At the present time, there are a few decent bass up into the 20-pound range out off Buoy “11 C” and the Obstruction Buoy to keep local anglers busy until the jumbos arrive. He’s sure it will happen soon, and any time now there will be bigger fish around, once the weather clears and more anglers get out to wet a line.