Well, I am way way behind updating this here blog. Ive cobbled together my thoughts and some images. Expect to hear more from me in coming months as I have the “itch” like a lot of you out there. 2020 was a weird year for sure. I’ll sum up my fishing observations in 13 bullets.
1. Bass arrived early. I caught my first local bass on March 31st, a record for me. (This excludes the holdover rivers where bass can be caught all year long.). It was about 12 days earlier than the typical mid April date, it may not seem like a big deal but in the natural world, it is. Chalk that up to a mild winter in 2020.
2. Early spring bassing in the islands stunk. No two ways about it. Not many big fish and less fish in general. This was the 2nd year in a row of poor bassing during May-June period in the islands. Don’t get me wrong: we caught many schoolies per usual, but not the many ‘bigguns’ in the mix.
3. I did pretty darn well on Spring togging, my only year attempting this. Deep water and slower tides.
4. The local chunk bite stunk. Sure, the party boats fishing twice daily at 11b and other popular spots killed plenty of fish for their passengers and they’d say it was a great year. But- generally speaking, me and guys I talk to who fish hard, did not do well. Not in shallow or deep. Caught some big fish and lost a few heartbreakers (one in part particular that I saw and was easily high 30’s), but not up to par.
5. That said, we had a few epic days over a week or two long period chasing bunker schools and casting plugs+ live lining. Really limited time period (had to be there kinda thing).
6. We had a good Influx of ‘exotic’ species this spring . Namely shad and mackerel. At times these exotics supplanted our usual resident bass. There was also a lot of small bait, and I believe sand eels (2nd year in a row). Sure would’ve loved to see more stripers and blues on the small bait – although we had a few good Spring blitzes . The exotics came in May and early June when water was cool.
7. On the positive, we had really nice late season island bassing-late June through August even. This was odd given it was a mild winter, early spring, and water temps had been warm for a while. I recall a day in early August catching solid fish into slot size, in the midday sun on a beautiful day in the islands. This is really unusual for August in the western sound, especially in the heat of the high sun. Then we had a few good days with slot fish in late June early July. It really took awhile to get going and seemed like quality fish moved in and moved out quick.
8. Again, common trend the last two years-tons of mid sized blues from late august into September. Kind of fun to put kids and newbies on these fish, pull some drag and put em on the grill or smoker if you wish. Massive blitzes. Wish they got a little bigger. They went out deeper into October and 28c was the place to be, most fish on jigs then and even nice sea bass mixed in.
9. Absence of the big mid sound tailing bluefish events we have on slick days in august and July. Maybe I just missed it.
10. Absence of albies locally, sad to say. There was one single day, October 23rd, when they came west of middle ground, and came to our side of the sound. It was absolutely insane that afternoon right in our harbor, but it was one single day. And I talk to a lot of guys who spend a lot of time on the water. Other than that you had to run easy of middle ground or across to PJ area.
11. Huge pods of dolphins on the north shore. Nuff said. Spotted a whale in 2019, also a sunfish/Mola mola, then tons of dolphins one day in 2020.
12. Couple good days of bassing in October, pretty random, ‘had to be there’. This is in addition to tons of schoolie days with no big ones. Gotta put your time in around here if you want to get them on artificials.
13. Solid togging season to cap it off. I’ve said it before but limits need to be changed or these fish are going to be threatened a few years. 2 fish per man in the fall would be a good start.
Norwalk Islands Fishing 