While it’s just officially changed seasons to fall, I think most New England residents would say it felt like fall for awhile until the Helene effects. Although most leaves just started to turn in the last few weeks, we had overnight temps in the 50s on many occasions in early September (till the Helene humidity, wind and warm temps overwhelmed us).
What’s weird this year is that we’re a bit ‘behind schedule’ in terms of fall run starting, despite those cooler-than-usual overnight temps for most of the month. The false albacore arrived a few weeks after their typical mid September date. Bluefish and bass blitzes generally aren’t happening much until very recently too. I’ve reflected with a few fellow anglers that it seems the fishing seasons ‘start earlier, and end later nowawadays,’ and that really resonates this year.
Anyway, before we get into fall fishing too heavy let’s make some observations on the spring and summer. See my notes below.
- Shallow water island fishing in the Norwalk Islands was weak. Aside from maybe a little spurts here and there, early spring, maybe a few summer days, it was very very slow for me. This is a bummer as it’s one of my favorite styles to fish: blind casting fishy shallow structure.
- What we’re seeing now is the continued rise of the weakfish, and perhaps the start of an upswing in Fluke, and what I believe is a decline in striped bass. It’s niether good nor bad, it just is. The marine ecosystem experiences cycles in species abundancy, and this is a well-observed, documented fact.
- Bunker absent in deep open water in the Sound: similar to last year, our rivers werent inundated till late May/June. They weren’t particularly thick, and were very absent in the deep, open (structure-less) water where we used to get some really nice blitzes in June. When bunker schools were really abundant, the water was too hot for bass to be active. Are bunker being overfished by Omega Protein and all the local boats supplying tackle shops/rec anglers, or are we just in a down cycle? OR-is this due to changes in temperatures?
- We are continuing to see the range of southern/mid atlantic species move northwards. More tarpon being caught in new England, more redfish, more near shore menhaden in Mass/Maine (traditionally north of their range).
- Excellent Bonito season this year! Albies are TBD…
- While we’re perhaps seeing less bunker, we’re continuing to see more mackeral in our waters in the spring mixing in. This could be some displacement, who knows.
- Continued rise of social media fishing and ‘clusters’. There is no more tight-lipped fishing secrecy, everyone shares where they’re catching one way or another, which leads to these fishy ‘cluster’ areas getting more crowded. Combined with the growth of angling as an American hobby, it’s going to make things interesting.
Anyway, that’s enough serious stuff. Footage from the past 6 months below, and I’m stoked to hunt some fish in the final month and a half (typically one of the best !). Tight lines.
Norwalk Islands Fishing 