August Fishing

We were lucky this past week to have some cooler weather. There were even a few mornings when you needed a sweatshirt on your way out fishing. It made for some great beach weather.

Now that it’s August, both the bay and ocean beaches have been packed. There have been some dolphins at the ocean chasing the bait schools.

August 1 saw the full sturgeon moon, and there will be another full blue moon on August 30. Two full moons in the same month only happens every few years.

Local fishing continues in the summer mode. Porgies are throughout the bays. They are being caught from both boats and beach. Clams are the best bait.

There are still fluke being caught from Bug Light to the North Ferry on the north side of Shelter Island.

Striped bass locally have been quiet.

There have been some cocktail-sized bluefish being taken at Jessups. Birds and fish are on top taking shiny metal lures and jigs.

The weakfish are the only constant bite that is happening. Throughout the Peconics and Noyac Bay, there are mixed sizes of fish. Some days you have to look for them. Squid on hilo rigs and small jigs are both catching fish.

There is news of blue claw crabs being caught in the local creeks.

This week, I got the haul seine out to see what young of the year specimens were around. I was pleasantly surprised for the first week of August. We had snappers from 4 to 10 inches, and plenty of the same size kingfish. The surprise was the number of blowfish. There were blowfish from ping pong size balls to tennis size balls when they blew up. I look forward to seeing what happens as August progresses.

Montauk continues to have good fishing. Fluke fishing has improved from around the Point and at Block Island. Seabass are biting, but you must weed through the shorts to get your limit. A bye catch has been plenty of ling and whiting. Tuna continue to bite to the south and east of the Point. Plum Gut and the Race have a good amount of bluefish. A few bass are in the low Lighthouse. The Sound has great porgy fishing. And mixing in are some big seabass.