4 Photos
There is a rip off Montauk commonly known as Pollock Rip because once upon a time pollock were caught there regularly. It's rare nowadays to find them in Block Island Sound but the crew of the Double D charter boat happened upon one recently.
Dean Hagerman with a nice striped bass caught in the Peconics recently. The bays and ocean have both been stacked with striped bass plenty early this spring.
Mike and Michael Dean and one of the gorilla bluefish that have been roaming the bays and ocean shorelines recently.
Steve Sullivan with a a Peconic Bay taco trifecta caught aboard the Shinnecock Star last week.
This has sort of quietly turned into a pretty gangbusters spring for fishermen.
Surf fishermen have had a solid year in the bays with nice-sized striped bass in Shinnecock, Moriches and the Peconics.
Weakfish are putting in a very good showing again, with some very nice fish being taken both from the beach and in boats.
Big blue fish are roaming all the local bays for those just looking to hear their drag whine.
And porgy fishing has been very good in the usual jumbo spots, meaning lots of fish tacos for everyone.
The striped bass fishing has definitely been the brightest of the bright spots. After a stretch of years when bass would trickle into the bays in May but not really set up in the waters off Montauk and around Shinnecock and Moriches Inlet until mid to late June, this year has seen stripers from tiny to trophy sizes streaming into the rips and inlets in good numbers before the end of May.
Montauk’s charter and party boat fleet has stacked fillet tables high with big bags of bass meat for their customers, thanks to a large number of fish growing into the 28-to-35-inch slot sizes this year. A lot of the boats are catching their fish with diamond jigs, too, instead of the traditional wire line trolling, which is fun for the fisherman and also less stressful for the fish.
There have been lots of trophy stripers already, too. Fish into the 30- and 40-pound class, which make for great photos but then have to go back to the sea.
It’s sort of hard to account for why these fish have pushed east this year, when in recent years they’ve gotten stalled in the New York Bight for weeks. The fish in Montauk this week have been feeding mostly on tiny anchovies, sandeels, sardines and squid, not the big pods of bunker that have been the Pied Piper in years past.
And the emergence of the breeding stripers from the Hudson River over the last couple of days has hopes high that it is primed to get even better.
The huge bluefish have also been keeping anglers smiling all over the South Shore. Whether you’re shorebound, a fly fisherman or just someone who loves seeing big fish crash into topwater plugs, the fish have been putting in an outstanding showing from Montauk to Accabonac to Westhampton. Crush your barbs.
About the only slow spot on the local scene has been the fluke fishing, and that hasn’t been terrible. The Shelter Island Sound bite is putting up a few keepers for those who put in the time away from the porgies and weakfish, or get lucky while targeting them. The ocean run off Montauk has been kinda slow, but there’s a few to be had, and Shinnecock Bay seems to be mostly small fish but a keeper here and there around the mouth of the canal and the inlet cuts.
Reports of tuna moving into local waters are starting to trickle in. Not many have been caught yet, but it should be any day now. The limit on giants and large mediums is up to three per day now, and charter boats will be allowed to keep four schoolies this year, so there will be lots of mercury in the bloodstreams of Northeast fishermen this summer!
Catch ’em up. See you out there.
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