Wowzer… What a fun week of fishing. While the whole fishery is not yet red hot, certain pieces of it are. For starters, we have not seen harbor fishing like we are having right now in recent memory. Sand eels have infiltrated our waters sooner than typical and the fish are loving it! The last week have been a truly incredible scene. In the harbor, for instance, stripers and shad are feasting on fresh waves of sand eels coming in daily. If you take a boat outside the jetties you will see birds on the sand eels and the mackerel underneath them. If you go on a boat south of the island you will see the same, sand eels being eaten by mackerel/seabass/stripers and scup. Very cool stuff.

 

So does this mean everyone around the island is catching fish, not quite, but this deluge of bait is definitely attracting fish and over the next days and weeks we will likely see more and more fish enter our fishery. All of this and we have yet to have the big push of squid yet. Remember us saying in the past; find the bait and you will find the fish, well we have the bait, we have some fish, but a lot more fish are coming, so get ready.

 

Boat fishermen to this point have been fortunate as the harbor has had a lot of fish, and those fishing from the shore who have put their time in too have been rewarded. So where are the fish? The majority of the fish are still concentrated in Madaket Harbor along the North Shore and into the main harbor. Believe it or not, Brant Point and Hulbert have been two of the best places to fish. Around a high tide Dionis down to Eel point has been good and Hither creek, while slowing down is still producing fish. The South SHore is just starting to really happen. Yesterday the bite was great from cisco to Miacomet using big lures on the surface, mostly pencil poppers, but this continues to be spotty. What this likely means is the fish are eating squid offshore and are excited about the next round of bait coming in. To this note, the rips are just starting to happen. The squid are not quite in yet, but many fish are in the waves, happily waiting. There are a lot of squid up on the cape, so once they infiltrate our waters we should see a whole new biomass of fish push in.

 

Black Sea Bass season is open and has been really productive. There are a lot of fish around the Island and many of them are quite big. These fish need to be 15 inches to keep and there is a limit of 5 fish. Remember, no need to keep them just because you catch them! Practice catch and release.

 

Lastly, what should you be using? ON the south shore, have some fun with some bigger lures, but on the north shore and in the harbors, go small. The typical sliders, poppers and twitchbaits have all been working as have albie snax and other soft plastics. Your spring box should be small lures that all have some action to them and can catch a fishes attention

 

It has been an incredibly fun week of fishing and the best part is only more fun to come. June is always been our favorite Striped Bass month.