redneckangler

After dragging myself out of bed Friday at 2:30am only to see that they had upped the wind forecast and issued a small craft advisory, my day finally began around 4:00pm, or about twelve hours later than expected. I fished Watch Hill and the eastern half of Fisher's out of the Barn Island launch, this time armed with some eels as well as the usual light tackle arsenal, hoping to see numbers like I did last week. Inner Sugar looked promising, as I marked some decent fish holding close to the bottom. I fished it from the spindle all the way around Catumb Rocks without any luck. I watched a few other boats come and go. Despite the sun still hovering above the horizon, I drifted some eels across the areas I had marked. While I managed to snag two lobster pots, losing my rigs, I hooked no stripers. Talk about frustrating.

I ran west to East Point (Fishers), where three casts in I had a striper on. It was a schoolie, but a fish none the less. After a few more of those, the tide started to let go. I decided I drag a few tubes tight through the boulder fields. First pass, two fish on, each headed in different direction, while I was slipping boulders. I just had to let one run in the rod holder, turning into it to avoid rocks while trying to reel on the other. The first one came in quickly and was a schoolie that I popped off ASAP as I wanted to try and recover my other rig. I cranked in line and came tight on the second fish, still on. From the initial hit, I was expecting bigger, but this guy was just over the keeper limit. By this time, the sun was setting and the tide had completely crapped out. I considered waiting for the flood to pick up, but was just too tired. I ended up back at the dock trying to catch some sleep before heading out again in the early am.

I was woken as the remaining few boats came in at some point in the night, and from the conversations I could hear, the fishing wasn't as good as it had been earlier in the week. "At least we got a few," said one guy as the last two boats departed. Maybe the fish were reacting to the pressure changes, and will be back on the by the time I write this.

By 4:30am, I was dropping back in and headed out to the reefs. I had some tide left on Watch Hill, and it wasn't long before I was into some big blues. This was all blind casting, as I wasn't marking nor were there any birds to be seen. As a matter of fact, this season has been characterized by the complete lack of birds working big schools of bait on the outer reefs. Maybe it's just been my timing, but I've never out so many times and seen so few birds working.

As the tide on Watch Hill died out, I ran west to Race Point. On the way I spotted this really beautiful schooner a few miles south of the coast. I ran out to take a few pics. Race point was dead. The Helen III and a few other boats were drawing blanks. I didn't see a fish landed in 45 minutes. I'm not sure why she was there instead of with the weekend fleet at Valiant Rock, or over in Plum Gut which has been full of bluefish. The guys on that boat may as well have been jigging in a desert. Time to head back east.

The flood tide was now running at Watch Hill, and I expected those blues and birds to be up and chasing bait, but again, nothing. I fished long enough to see a few boats come and go. I took a peak east up the coast to Weekapaug and Quonochontaug, before deciding to call it an early day.

Made it up for a one day trip Sunday! Weather was fantastic, which brought everyone out to take advantage of that last chance before the cold. It was ridiculous. Saw tons of walk-ins in places you rarely see many, even during the crazy salmon runs. Fished up top in Altmar with Scott and my brother.

With flows around 250cfs and about a million people, the steelies were there but really turned off. After a slow start below the schoolhouse, Doug hooked and landed his first and only fish. Doug needs to work on his fish posing, but at t 320lbs., it's hard to make a fish look big.

The fish were stacked in a tight location, with one guy on a float rig able to take advantage. We were in an ideal position to run a center pin down this seam, but it would have screwed everyone on the opposite bank. I stuck to flies and rubber eggs all day. The good thing about drifting is that nobody walks in to the side we were fishing, and we worked pretty well with the guys across from us to stay out of each other's way. Hookups were just about non-existent, so we decided to jump ahead of the other drift boats, moving well down from town.

It was literally elbow to elbow down through the trussel. There is one line for drift boats to take, and once you commit, you're in. Some guy hooked a fish between the center truss and the right bank after we'd started in. Not sure why, but he tried to submerge his rod tip and line rather than using his 11 ft. rod to elevate the side so we might have had a chance of going under. Needless to say, he lost his fish. We could still hear him a half mile down the river. Word to the wise. No point in casting once a boat is approaching that line of white water. It's not going to stop. We got ahead of the other boats to a location that is inaccesible to walk-ins, and set up shop for the rest of the afternoon. The bite was still tough, and I only had five shots, landing one. However, that was 3-4 more than anyone else in the area. Doug never hooked another fish, but he was fishing with spinning gear which really limits the volume of casts and thus the percentages of getting a hookup. I had all of my hits in about a 5 sq. ft. strike zone. Even losing those fish is a pretty awesome experience. I had a few take 50 yard runs on me in seconds before flipping a few times and giving me the f you. The only thing I've fished that is as angry as these things would be tarpon. Think of an albie run with a sailfish tendency to go airborn. It's a blast. Cant wait to get back up in a few more weeks, onnce some snow has hit the ground, and the temperature dropped to chase away the crowds.

Ran up to RI Sunday to see if I could find some big stripers. Started at dawn searching the shoreline from the east end of Misquamicut to Green Hill. Had the big binos scanning close to 100sq. miles of water. Nothing. Nada. Didn't see squat. Several other surf casters making rounds with the same story. Saw the same guys a few times, which means they weren't just holding out. Only went as far as Green Hill. Maybe there were some fish further east. Who knows. Stopped back in JBs in Niantic on the way home to pick a a reel, and discussed the RI coast. General consensus was this storm has resulted in herring bypassing the shore. With another nor'easter coming in, that may be it. I'd like to get a shot at some late season surf casting, but unless the herring start coming back in some decent numbers, it's not worth the drive and gas$$$$. Parts of the coast did get walloped. No access to Watch Hill or the ocean front in Westerly. Cleanup was moving right along though. Hope they catch a break with Wednesday.

My buddy Jeff and I took our sons up to fish smallmouth on the Housie. The boys landed a few nice fish and then played around for quite a while. A quick vid of Danny and Quinn rippin' some lips!

Went out with Jack Balint from The Fish Connection, Dave and Bill this morning. Was hoping to see some bonito, and ready for lots of blues on light tackle. Fishing was about as smoking as it gets this time of year. Started out in the Watch Hill area picking up some blues early as the flood was starting, but not much, so we moved to the Race around Valiant Rock. Lots of blues (as you could imagine), including a few big choppers. The bluefish action was steady until late in the flood, when we began seeing large numbers of good sized bass mixing in on top, right in the edge of the rip. Blues were faster to just about everything, but Bill pulled one nice keeper and we had a few shorts. There were some big tails and dorsals rising up chasing the squid that were flooding through. Water was really clear and you could see stripers cruising through and slurping up squid, ink clouds all over the place. As soon as the tide went, so did the squid, etc. Four straight hours of catching blues on light gear, with a bonus of some top water stripers in August, makes for a good day. Jack decided to swing back east of Fishers before calling it a day, just to take a looksy. The ebb tide was already starting to move, and we noted small schools of bait coming out of the water. Bill flipped out and immediately had a blue on. I spotted a school of stripers that was holding an area and just waiting for the bait schools to wash down. It was easy to tell they were holding to their structure as one large fish had a pink plug buried in it's back, and kept flashing past us every 5 minutes. I landed a nice 20+ pounder and a ton of shorts. You could again see some big fish mixed in with the schoolies. It was tough to call it a day, but as it was I was two hours late getting home to our sitter. Thanks to Jack, Bill and Dave. Helluva fun day out. Dave took a bunch of pics and some video that I will get up later and post on my blog. I was too busy catching fish!

Went out with my buddy John on a quick trip to fish Black Pond in Meriden/Middlefield. Set off a bit after noon, so wasn't expecting much this time of year. Wasn't a bad afternoon, as we hooked a few decent bass and some little guys, all dragging frogs across lilly pads. Secret is to wear camo that matches the fish so you can sneak up on them :) Sure beats mowing the lawn!

This pond is right down the river from me, so I drop by pretty often to throw in a line. It's good early season for bass as it is shallow, and by summer is full of slime. Still decent for throwing frogs, which is what I was doing tonight as a storm rolled in. Only had about 20 minutes to work the west bank (heavily fished all season). After a few dozen casts of my green pumpkin frog with nothing, a bolt of lightning anounced the end of the evening. I threw out my last Hail Mary cast and saw a boil and wake about six feet away and heading towards it. Gave it a twitch and my line was heading sideways. Set the hook and hauled in a nice fat bass with about 5lbs. of slime as well.

I wasn't too optimistic last night that I would get a chance to take the Gemma Rose (14' aluminum) out today. My fishing her in the salt water is so dependent on winds, tides and lack of storms. Decided to get up at 3:30am to check the weather, and was in luck. Nothing on the radar :D Wind less than 10 knots (magic number for me) from the NE, seas less than a foot and an ebb tide from about 8:00am-1:00pm at Black Point. When I've got the NE winds, I'm just about always launching out of Niantic for the CT River to Harkness, and Stonington on the SW winds to fish the north side of Fisher's. Was on the water and fishing the top of Niantic Bay by 6:30, looking to pick up some scup for bait. Tailor blues in the 1-2lb. range were breaking all over, and I had some fun playing with those for a while, keeping a couple to chunk. Had to cull through about 20 scup and lots of annoying juvenile sea bass to get four keepers to liveline, but by the time the tide started picking up off Black Point at 8-:15-8:30, I was ready. Took the obligatory tube and worm pass around the point, and was hit once, but wanted to get my scup in the water. On my second drift over a productive spot I had a decent hit but no hookset. Several more drifts with nothing. I put on Scuppy II, and quickly lost him to a snag. Next I hooked a fish and broke it off. Finally got a 18-19lb. striper with my last scup :) Dropped down around Long Ledge Rock to find a few more scup, and ended up casting Zoom Fluke to bluefish for a while. Before calling it a day, I ran across the Bay to TwoTree, but didn't see much going on, so I decided to head for the dock. Turned out to be a decent trip!

Filled the cooler with striper fillets!

Went out yesterday with my daughter Gemma for a little father-daughter fishing fun. Nothing like pressure to find fish when taking your kids! Granted, they have to learn that fishing isn't all catching, but at my kids age, patience is still pretty limited. I certainly want them to enjoy it and continue to fish as they get older. As you can see, even a small fish makes for a great outing!