TheDay 9/9/05

1. Bass (40lbs plus) were caught at Watch Hill Reefs on live porgies.
2. Capt. Don's in Charleston said people with their boats in the Pawcatuck River are still getting fluke in 40-80 feet off Misquamicut on live mummies and fluke rigs.
3. Tourists and locals alike are buying Snapper Poppers for all the snapper blues around and kids are catching small blackfish from the shoreline rocks, unfortunately keeping some that were undersized. Shore anglers landed bass at Quonny on Thursday evening on black darters with a teaser. Don said if you didn't have the small teaser fly you didn't get a hit.
4. Capt. Al Anderson has been fishing offshore because of lack of bonito and schoolie bluefin on the inshore grounds. They had a good week with mahi to 12 pounds, both trolling and casting with light spin rods and 10-pound line on the high flyers south of the Dump. Their catches ranged from 12-24 fish per trip in bluer water as high as 81.5 degrees. They saw very few tuna landed during that time. Al said you had to steam down below 43400 to find any yellowfin at all.
5. Allen at Shaffers in Mystic said his boats found jumbo porgies over the long holiday weekend in deeper water on the rocky bottom between Wicopesset and Catumb. Fluke are still coming in and Allen expects to see them for about two more weeks.
6. A catch of fluke to 9.8 pounds in 50 feet of water off South Beach on the south side of Fishers Island last Friday. Blues were caught in NUMBERS from The Race and bass and blues from the Watch Hill Reef. Trolling lures and wire line at Watch Hill Reef caught bluefish and a 23-pound striper.
7. Jack at the Fish Connection said his charter on Wednesday had a nice catch of small to medium blues and a couple small bass casting around Race Rock and local waters. He did note the south side of Fishers Island was hard to fish because of big sea from the two hurricanes out in the Middle and South Atlantic. The Thames River had lots of small blues and some bass, a couple larger fish caught by chunkers within the last week around buoy 27.
8. The area around buoy 27 in the upper Thames is teeming with snapper blues and small bunkers. Also seen several schools of smaller blues on top over on the west side. She also wrote about five returns on bass tagged earlier in the river. One was recaptured up in Casco Bay, Maine, the others from New Jersey; still two others from Cape Cod. The two fish from the Cape were re-caught within a day of each other.
9. Capt. Brad Glas of the Hel-Cat reported another good week of bluefish catches, including the nasty weather last Wednesday. The blues were mostly medium-sized fish with a limited amount of stripers on the “right piece of the tide.” The Saturday night trip also landed a number of bluefish. The biggest fish of the week was a striper, a 13-pounder caught by Al Alfield of Springfield, Mass. They continue to sail 9 to 3 for blues in The Race and Saturday evening at 6 p.m. for ocean blues at famed Alligator Ledge.
10. Hillyers Tackle talked about lots of blues from The Race and some bigger ones chunked at various spot along outer Niantic Bay. Race Rock is but one suggestion for large porgies. Blackfish season is now closed for a short time, reopening on Sept. 22. Fluke were still caught but the end of that fishing is coming down the road.
11. Sherwood Lincoln of East Lyme ran his boat from Port Niantic on Monday to Charlestown for a limit catch of sea bass and porgies on one of the deeper humps off that town. Those drifting live porgies on the deeper humps off Black Point and Outer Bartletts caught some better bass if the bluefish left the baits alone.
12. Capt. Kyle Douton at J&B Tackle said their charter boat trolled up a bass somewhere in the high 50s to low 60s one evening at Valiant Shoal within the last seven days. Blue fishing in the day remains very strong and blackfish numbers took a spike over the weekend but is closed now for a short time. Trollers had long fin albacore and smaller yellowfin starting around 14650 X 43500 and working south to the 43400 line. Shakers landed blues and smaller makos around the Suffolk wreck or the Horns.
13. Jeff Frechette was back on the water, fishing in Block Canyon on the Maggie B, a 44-footer owned by a friend. They trolled a small mahi and 35-pound albie near the drop in the early morning then worked back up to the flats north of the Tail for 3 more mahi, five more albies and 2 skippies. The best color lure in the pattern was green/yellow. They had a large Black Bart way back in the spread looking for big boy but he didn't appear this time out. Biggest fish was a 40-pound long fin albacore.
14. Pat Abate at River's End weighed in fluke of 10 and 13 pounds this week caught by a pro using large baits in 120-plus feet of water. Smaller fluke continue to be caught in the 30-foot depths along the eastern Sound beaches along with a good report about large fluke and sea bass from the south side of Montauk. The smaller reefs are better for the largest porgies. Regulars getting live bait in Clinton landed large bass at Southwest Reef. This area is full of 4-8-pound blues; some are in along the beaches from Westbrook to Hatchetts Point chasing schools of small bunker.