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Felix Ausay caught this 39-pound striped bass from the rocks beneath the Montauk Lighthouse last week.
Photo by Jack Yee

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And the band plays on.

There’s still plenty of striped bass around and some signs that we might get a great late season run on the beaches. The sand eels are persistent little buggers and are still packed into the surf zone.

There’s plenty of stripers cruising around feeding on them, too, and even some big bluefish. The fish are scattered since the sand eels don’t really seem to school-up densely but certain spots—like the sand points in Napeague—seem to hold fish more consistently than others.

A new body of herring appears to have moved through Block Island Sound and into eastern Gardiners Bay in the middle of last week and brought more striped bass with them. Some nice fish, from 10 to 40 pounds were taken on plugs and bucktails underneath the Montauk Lighthouse late in the week and throughout the weekend. The biggest fish came on the first day the herring showed and then dwindled (which tells me that there are more big fish somewhere between the light and Gardiners Bay—wherever those herring are). But the gannets kept bombing in the elbow and fish have been taken up front every day since.

Back to the west, the water cleaned up a bit over the weekend and the fish went right back to chewing on the sand eels. There was a steady pick of stripers early in the week, including word of at least one fish in the 30-pound class, in Napeague and Amagansett and some decent shots at fish at Shinnecock Inlet (where a 44-pounder was taken, supposedly) and Ponquogue Beach in Hampton Bays as well. Green continues to be the color of choice in tube, trailer or pork.

The big east wind forecast for Wednesday and Thursday could be good for the striper fishing, or it could be bad. At the height of the storm, the beaches may blow out, but if the waters don’t brown up too much I’d be keeping an eye out for a herring sprint in the surf.

If you’re looking to catch some herring for the pickle jars, the Shinnecock Canal has a few and the commercial dock in Three Mile Harbor has plenty.

Bluefin tuna sightings are still coming in intermittently and with all the sand eels and herring in the area—not to mention the squid, sardines and giant silversides I’ve been seeing under the lights in the harbor by my house—it wouldn’t be surprising if there were a couple caught one of these days. They’ve been picking away at some fish in the 100- to 200-pound class in the New York Bight on jigs, Slug-Os and ballys. Brother Stephen got one last week, 134 pounds on a Slug-O trolled behind a big drail.

The warm temps—up until this week anyway—have meant the blackfishing is still great on the deeper spots when you can get out. Cartwright, Middle Grounds and the wrecks off Rhode Island have all been good producers. There’s some cod and jumbo ling mixed into the bag in the ocean spots as well.

Waterfowl hunting season reopened on Tuesday and got off to a charming start with the nasty weather on Wednesday. The season runs through January 31—so there’s plenty of time to do that later and go fishing now!

Catch ’em up. See you out there.