Fishing Reports

As usual, I get way too caught up fishing, working etc., and I am way behind on keeping up this blog. I do publish weekly reports via Rex & Cove Marina’s ‘Harbor Talk,’ so feel free to reach out if you’d like to be added there. Since I have a lot of time and reports to cover, I’m going to summarize the fishing from May until now, and get to the present report as, I imagine, everyone is excited to see what’s happening now.

1. The boat went in later than usual this year, mid May. This was due to new docks and lots of boat improvements for me. Anyway, off the bat I had good fishing for schoolies. As usual the action starts in the rivers and estuaries where the warmer water and bait is focused. Nothing crazy in terms of notable catches.

2. We had an early run of big fish feasting on Menhaden in mid sound, despite a snowy, rather cold winter. May 23rd was the first time I found fish feeding in this pattern.

3. In addition to the big bass mid sound on Bunker early, there were more blues cruising on the surface than I have ever seen to my knowledge. This lasted until about mid/late July.

4. Until about late June, all the bunker were in the middle of the sound, as opposed to the rivers. At least not in the Norwalk river which is my home port. If they were around, they must have been down deep. Even mid-sound the bunker schools seems at time isolated. If you could find them, then almost certainly you found bass and blues on them. And, this resulted in some truly wild afternoons and mid mornings.

5. By mid July, this all changed. The bunker showed up thick in the rivers. We also had a pretty rainy July, which displeased a lot of people. But, it certainly resulted in a good July fishing-wise. The nasty weather created some great fishing conditions, and the bunker abundance helped as well. In fact, this was one of the better years for summer fishing. It is a trend I am noticing the last few years… where the island bite doesn’t seem to be heating up until late June to early July- a time when traditionally the summer heat slows bassing down. Even until early August, good fish are being taken – on topwater, in sunny midday conditions.

6. We are also seeing more blues mixed in with the bass inshore. All those blues we were catching in the middle of the sound are moving into the shallows it seems. I hope it keeps up.

Fast forward and here we are in mid-August. The bassing is still pretty decent. We are starting to see an influx of smaller ‘peanut’ bunker. Presumably, because bunker have just finished spawning. To our east we have seen the first arrival of exotic species, Spanish Mackerel. Farther east and offshore we have Bonito. We hope these fish continue west into our wheelhouse, and are supplemented by our friends the False Albacore. The ‘Albie’ bite was pretty crappy last year, aside from a one or two day period on our side of the sound. So fingers crossed for a rebound by our favorite speedsters. There is a lot of small spearing around, and the adult Menhaden seem to have thinned out. Admittedly, I haven’t spent as much time on the water as usual the last two weeks, but this should be changing. It’s also a good time to mix it up and do some bottomfishing for Porgy, Fluke and Black Sea Bass. I had some lackluster results in spots where I typically land some big Sea Bass, but I’ll be putting more time in there soon.

I hope everyone is having a great summer, and I’ll see you around on the water catching. Mahalo!

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.