Big Girls Invade Block, Watch Hill
Mercifully, after more than a month of anemic, stop-and-go (more stop than go, according to most of my sources) fishing on seemingly every front, the last three or four days as of this writing on Thursday night (June 18) have delivered us some striped bass. In classic fashion, the striped bass have used the stretch of days climbing the moon to do some fair-tide swimming, as they traditionally do in June and July. I have heard of at least several 50-pound bass taken at the Island from Tuesday night onward, and with commercial season openâat least for the moment, I imagine another load of slobs will have been dispatched by the time you read this. Really, up until this week the Island had loads of those cookie-cutter 28- to low-30-inch range bass, which have been stuffing themselves to the gills slurping up little sand eels that have been swarming the grounds this week, notably off the east side, Southwest, and the North Rip. The charter guys have been chipping away dragging frames on wireâthe age-old solution to bass eating sand eels. The bulk of bigger fish, 30s, 40s and 50s, have been taken on live eels.
The Bay is still harboring more bunker than bass, to the extent that 90% or the better fish coming out of the upper Bay are going to about 5% of the guys out trying.
Fluking is also starting to show daily improvementâand not a minute too soon with the much anticipated Fluke Till Ya Puke tournament slated for this weekend. Most coastal shops were in duck-and-cover mode as swarms of slab enthusiasts rummaged through peg-boards in search of some hook, jig, leader material, spinner, skirt, tube, or whirligig that might give them the subtle edge when the Storming of the Soundsâthis yearâs FTYP tournament has broken the entry record yet againâbegins Saturday. The fluking at Block Island has been intermittent, with success closely tied to experience and work ethic. Things have come up a few pegs on the mainland side as well, with the stretch from the Hang outside the East/Center Wall all the way to Charlestown showing more quality slabs every day. Donât expect wonders: Youâll have to play the conditions, and more likely than not, weed through quite a few rats for what youâll keep.
Surf fishing is getting better but still a source of widespread complaint, particularly for the folks trying to claw their way into the fishery at this constricted point in striper availability for the shorebound.
As a bit of a side thought with this weekâs greatly-enhanced striper situation, particularly in light of the one-fish bag limit in effect from here out, I want to take a few paragraphs to address a topic that has taken on whole new importance: The technical aspects of releasing striped bass in good fighting conditionâa procedure thatâs fairly straightforward when youâre shooing away 21-inchers at the West Wall, but which gets more complicated when the stripers youâre liberating scale 30 or 50 pounds. I maintain that weâve entered a new phase in our striper fishery, and should think hard about drilling on big bass no matter how much fun it is or how thick the fish might be in one little corner of the coast. But catching one for the table and a couple more for exercise remains wholesomeâso long as you know how, and take the time, to give every fish you send back best odds of surviving the ordeal.
A few basic tools and a handful of practiced steps when you lift a bass aboard will do wonders for the striper survival rate in your cockpit. Best practice when releasing large fish is to avoid removing them from the waterâto lip them by hand if your boat affords you ready access to the water, or use a reliable dehooker on a long, sturdy pole if leaning over is too risky in a boat with significant freeboard (deck level high off the water; high gunwales). Again, this is best-practiceâand not the only good way to return a fish.
When your young nephew boats his first 30-pounder, unless you already have a full limit aboard, you should keep it for him, and then circle back when heâs hooked and a bit older with the high-handed conservation bit. Either way, you owe him (and yourself) a good photo of his catch. To buy yourself a bit of time, keep a towel or striper-sized remnant of non-abrasive carpet on the boat; lay it out on deck and douse it with salt water just before landing the fish, then transfer her from net directly on it. Keep a bucket of saltwater handy with a second, smaller towel you can lay across the fishâs head to cover its eye. Itâs amazing how quickly even the greenest bass will go limp as a noodle the instant you rob it of sight. This will prevent a fish from thrashing around, removing slime and scales or otherwise injuring itself in the struggle.
Keep the fish swaddled until your nephewâs ready to heft it a smile, and your camera is ready to point and fire away. This should be no more than a minute all told.
Avoid holding the fish so its lip is carrying its entire body weight (as you might hold a schoolie). Lip her, but before you lift, use a wet second hand to support the belly, holding her at about 45 degrees.
Obvious as it sounds, itâs staggering how often I watch guys do the unthinkable: Never, never touch an part of a striperâs gills, gillplates (the inside thereof), or eyes, and minimize contact with any part of the slime coating. Speaking of slime, any skin or fabric that will touch it must be wet.
If the fish is visibly friskyâin the cold water weâve had so far, a fish will hold up much betterâcradle the fish by its lower jaw and belly against your side and launch it head-first, torpedo-style back into the drink to give it an oxygenated jolt before it heads for bottom.
If a fish is exhausted from protracted battleâas water heads toward its high-summer apex, the effects of the fight (lactic acidosis), time out of water, and other injuries compound rapidly into the yearâs post-release mortality peak. ‘
Itâs when waterâs hot that the stakes of release are highest. Unfortunately, that point in a Block Island season is also the time when you can catch 20 cows in a tide. How do you handle that? Donât be the guy bragging back at the dock about how you caught two 50s, five over 40, 15 over 30 pounds. The stock already carries a load thatâs hard to fathom. Donât add your ego to that total: Catch a couple, then go fluking, go sharking, go snipe-hunting or parasailingâjust donât pig on a fragile resource.
Another (related) matter: We can all agree that light tackle is lots of fun. Unfortunately, in the wrong handsâsomewhere between ego and ineptitudeâtoo-light gear and drawn-out fight times exterminate big stripers. Itâs not just the ones you gut-hook. Itâs the ones you spend five minutes âreviving,â the ones that swim weakly out of sight then die on the bottom and feed the crabs. When waterâs warmâsay, anything above 65 degreesâitâs time to beef up the gear, horse âem in and send âem packing before they boil in their own skin. Enough of that for now.
Mikey Wade at Watch Hill Outfitters was pleased to report greatly improved action this weekânot lights-out, but definitely better. The Watch Hill Reefs and Lords Passage both surrendered big bass the last few days, including a fifty for one local who connected while snapping parachutes. There have been a few confirmed fish in the 40-pound class, too. It should come as no surprise (given the former parachute reference) that there have been a few squid around the reefs, not necessarily in numbers you could effectively target. There are still droves of bunker up in the mighty Rio Pawcatucko, along with some of the same small to just-kepper bass that have been dogging them for weeks now. The fluke fishing has improved some locally, with most of the bigger slabs that have crossed the shopâs scales to date from the Weekapaug/Pink House sector, and the south side of Fishers not so much. Guys are catching bass in and around the Race, but itâs not lights-out.
âThings have finally started to come together this week,â said Matt Conti at Snug Harbor, who was on the fly when I raised him late Thursday afternoonâa shop full of folks on the prowl for top-secret doormat weaponry. âItâs been getting a little better on all fronts every day.â The big news around the docks was the apparent arrival of at least the first wave of heavyweight stripers off the south side and the Southwest Corner over at Block, where more than one 50 (53 was the only substantiated weight as of press time, but there were others) fell to live eels from Tuesday night onward. Thatâs not counting the high-30s and a number of 40-pounders folks have picked over the last several days. The dogs have been problematic for the fluke guysâless so for the striper sharpies who know how to avoid gray ones, especially with the big tides of late. As the days pass and we come down off the moons, the doggies will likely begin to play a larger role on the striper grounds.
Thankfully, itâs not just the Island showing promise now. Conti said most of the little reefs and rockpiles from Point Jude to the west have at least a few better bass for the skiffmen who know where to look. Per the norm for this early-season fishery, live baitsânotably pogies, hickory shad, or scup, if the former two prove elusiveâare the most reliable means to pull these coastal cows off their modest hangs toward daylight for a swipe. The trick, naturally, is to wing your baits toward the high spots from a respectful distance so you can show them baits before you show them a boat. And do not try to locate these small structures with the sounder when there are boats trying to fish them: Nothing ends a productive rockpile like a whining prop in 20 feet of water.
The first school bluefinsâthe ones you see, then drive yourself into the psych ward trying to catch oneâare making topside appearances S and SE of Block. One boat spotted them Thursday down at Coxes Ledgeânot that thereâs any reason to think youâll find them there today or tomorrow. There are week-old rumors about one sizeable thresher that allegedly went into Montauk, but shark intel, with the Star Island Tourney scheduled for thus weekend, is sketchy as of press time.
There are huge sea bass anywhere you normally find flukeânot that that means anything because theyâre off-limits for the moment.
Kenny at Rayâs Bait in Warwick said the upper Bay bass/bunker action has been reliably inconsistent: Fish sizes are all over the board, 15 inches to 45 pounds, and what action there has been defies any attempts to pattern the situation. Bottom line: There are more folks pissing and moaning than there are folks tuning big bass. The consensus is that a bumper crop of big bunker and a considerably less-bumper crop of stripers have give finned predators a distinct edge over the rod-wielding predators in pursuit. The fluke, he said, are in the usual placesâhe had a catch off Warwick Light early-week that included a 6-pounderâbut no oneâs been raving about the consistency of the keeper-catching in the Bay. Kenny commented heâs seen a few large draggers towing on fluke on the eastern side of the Bay up to Hope Island and beyond, and added this season is the first year heâs seen multiple draggers working up that way.
Asked about the state of RIâs striper fishery, Kenny explained he doesnât think the Bay has gotten all the fish it can expect just yet. âThe old timers who said we get a longer shot at stripers after very long winters forgot to mention that the fish sometimes arrive way later,â he said, chuckling. Kenny has it on good authority that there are some massive piles of slob stripers schooled up a few miles offshore, working eastward along the south side of Long Island. I wouldnât want to draw any big conclusions from that info, but we saw a similar scenarioâalbeit on a different timeframeâbefore Block Island went haywire with monster bass last year. Someone spottedâof all thingsâa big school of weakfish (?!) while steaming through the Mud Hole not long ago.
The Other Sam at Samâs was covering for The Sam when I checked in Thursday. She noted sheâd been tasked with tending the shop while Twinkletoes made a late-week canyon run. Flukingâs been a tough go, relatively speaking, in the usual areas, including Sakonnet, the broken bottom along Newportâs oceanfront, and over at Blockâthe fish hit-or-miss thus far, but getting better now. Striper-catching in the Bay remains a labor-intensive undertaking. Stay tuned for a trustworthy canyon report in the next report.
