Years ago we made a t-shirt that said “Go Fish!” as a play on the popular game. Well, we wish we still had that T-shirt, because we are telling everyone we see to GO FISH! If you want to catch a striper, now is the time. The striped bass have officially surrounded the island. No matter where you live, Striped Bass are close and with all the bait in our waters, they are hungry. In the past few days, we have just gotten our first push of bluefish. There are not enough fish that they are going to beat out the stripers, but enough so that if on the north shore you can start targeting them. Our waters are also filling with Black Sea Bass and Fluke. Just last Saturday Chip Cunningham landed a 4+ pound 22.5 inch Sea Bass. As we said…its fun out there, GO FISH! 

 

As for where to target stripers, they do literally surround the island. To be more specific though, on the North Shore, all the way up to Great Point and around the east side, the bass are making their way tight on the beach eating the sand crabs. Literally, if you stand with your toes in the sand and look in the wash you will see fish pushing up and down the shore break. These are mostly small fish, but they are fun, especially with the right rod. On the South Shore anglers have caught fish at all the major beaches with the key being to put in your time. Many of the smaller fish on the South Shore are also right in the wash, while some of the bigger fish are in the trough. Anglers are mostly still using soft plastics, both weighted and unweighted, but some are using the classic swimming plugs.

 

From the boats, the west end rips still have lots of squid in them and tend to be holding the most fish. There have been few reports from great point rip, but Sankaty has a lot of stripers near the bottom, so the point should follow soon. The fish at Sankaty do come up to the surface now and again, but mostly it has been the wire line guys and the jiggers have the most success. Old Man and some of the scones rips are also holding fish, so those in boats have lots of opportunity to find their own piece of water.

 

As for the blues, they have started flooding into the Sound and the North Side of the island. They are still not thick, but they are schooling up. Soon they will settle into the beaches of coatue and dionis.

 

Many keep commenting that the arrival of blues is late and they are right. This is largely because water temps have taken awhile to heat up, but we are starting to see them rise, which of course is linked to the arrivals of the chompers. This being said, over the last few years we have seen bluefish populations start to decrease. It is not believed that this is because of over harvesting of them, but those with the time on the water believe that there is a lack of bait to keep the blues around. It is important to remember that a huge source of bait for the last few years has been chocked out by the squid boats south of the island. Bait/squid right now is plentiful, we just hope it stays that way so we can keep the Stripers around and get bluefish back in the strong numbers we all remember.

 

We hope this report encourages you to GO FISH!