The early-week cold snap rung my bell—jarred my sense of time back into order, reminded me that fall is here. If the air temps on, say, Tuesday night didn’t get the point across, then the fact that it is once again full-dark by 8 p.m. drove it all home. As usual, I’ve gone from that sense of having “tons of time” straight into the standard autumn high panic that this whole season is going to wash out the scuppers before I can get a grip on it. I’ve lost bonito, and lost the late-season doormat fishery over at the Island. I will not fail to get in my time trying to cull a few 4-pounders out of Mount Mini on the sea bass grounds; I will not miss my shot—a few weeks down the line just now, it appears—to fill a two-hook rig with 5 pounds of scup, and I will not miss my shot at a tautog north of 10 pounds. The freezer stash of vacuum-sealed fillets is looking lean to nonexistent: It’s time to get cracking…
WESTERLY
Capt. Bill Brown of the Billfish had a scattering of news from his recent comings and goings with charter clients. First off, he headed for Block Island in search of sea bass early-week, where that fishing has been generally more reliable than mainland spots of late. Brown noted that he turned up fits and starts of some quality sea biscuits all around the southern half of the Island—some outside Old Harbor Point on the east side, some on the rockpiles around SE Light and west around Black Rock, as well as some of the drops on some inside drops along the inner part of Southwest. It was the Ledge proper—over the Fence—that served up best numbers of fish. The scup have been conspicuously absent so far—probably because the bulk of those fish are still hanging in tight to the shoreline stones. The expectation is that the scup fishery will pick up by the week. There are some nice sea bass around closer to Watch Hill, and running eastward to Quonny/Fresh Pond Rocks. The folks who are privy to some of the known—but not universally-known—wrecks in the deeper water across that zone have been turning up some Jurassic-size sea bass, while the inside hangs (15 feet or less) are turning up fair numbers of better scup. There have been some bass and blues on the Watch Hill Reefs, though the percentages still favor the trek over to the Island’s SW Corner, where the sharpies continue to stick some heavyweight bass on the daytime troll. Brown noted the false albacore are thick off Montauk but pretty scarce so far along the South County beaches. Though he had no confirmed word on the recent canyon activity, Brown did note that this is the time for makos in our part of the world. All the tournaments and, accordingly, much of the historical press on RI shark fishing occur in June and July, though September into late October is a sleeper in mako production. The cooler water and the abundance of fall bait typically translate to some very large toothy animals in the waters south of Block Island and Montauk—so long as the weather allows anyone to get out after them.
SNUG HARBOR
Matt at Snug Harbor Marina said the timing of the offshore recon is off for this report: Everyone left early this morning, trying to figure out where the last five days’ weather put the water and attendant fish. The striped bass fishing seems to be coming together over at the Island, just in time for the Billy Carr Memorial Tournament, which gets underway tonight, Friday, June 20, at 6 p.m. You can enter last-minute at Snug Harbor. Entry fee is $50 for surf or boat divisions, and there’s a $20 calcutta. The event, a great local tournament with excellent community turnout, runs from 6 p.m. Friday night through Sunday at noon, with weigh-ins at the shop. Following the event will be a big steak fry at the Bon Vue Inn in Narragansett, Sunday afternoon. At any rate, Montauk got a shot of fish Thursday night, and the boys on the Big Game tuned ‘em up off the SW Corner in the same timeframe. Matt hadn’t connected with them when we spoke Friday morning, but word was that they’d gotten into numbers of some much bigger fish. The tournament ought to turn up some good ones over the weekend. Scup are still up in the shoal water, fluke seem to be on the move with this moon (though we won’t know for sure until middle of next week), and sea bass are abundant if a bit challenging in the sense that you’ll cull through 50 rats on your way to a 7-fish personal limit in most places. For further details on the Billy Carr Tourney, you can raise the shop at 401.783.7766.
Joe Mollica noted it was another tough week of fishing on most fronts. The surf guys, including some of the area’s sharpest, have been lamenting a dismal striper fishery in areas long known as strongholds for early fall stripers. It’s been slim pickings to date from Monahans/the Garden/First Rock all the way southward to Black Point and Point Judith Light—a schoolie here or there in the deep night, maybe a keeper every fourth night. One of Mollica’s anonymous sources went so far as to drag live hickory shad—a bait that tends to turn up bass reliably if there are any to be had—through a stretch of what was, five years back, one of the premiere stretches of big-bass water in the state, if not the region. Varnum, Frenchman’s, Dixon’s, Anawam, Bonnet Point—places no one speaks about, places where fishing effort is regulated tightly by a total lack of parking, places more than a few local striper sharpies go to bail out bad nights or to win tournaments—failed to produce Striper One for Mollica’s old friend. There have been occasional good fish taken from the surf on the east side of the state—the jagged reefs, the submerged bedrock points, the boulder fields between Brenton Reef and Sachuest Point—but the folks doing most of that catching have been keeping the particulars thereof to themselves. A few of the fluke diehards have continued to scratch occasional shots of quality slabs in the deeper water east of Scarborough (70 to 80 feet) and farther south toward the Hooter and out in front of the Center Wall, though most of these areas can be terribly frustrating unless drift conditions are ideal. This being mid- leaning toward late-September, such windows of ideal drifting have become increasingly scarce by the week. The sea bass are scattered up and down the beach, but the best numbers are still over at Block, where the short-to-keeper ratio ranges from less-than-ideal to infuriating, area depending. Best numbers of keepers on the balance have come from Southwest Ledge proper—over the three-mile “Fence”—but you can only target sea bass there if you have no striped bass in your possession, you’re not actively fishing with any striper gear. If you have a single striped bass in the boat, it is illegal to fish outside the three-mile line. Thus, if you plan to double up—bass/blues and bottom-fishing—you’ll need to plan your tides accordingly, getting your sea bass first, then moving inside to work on linesides. Scup have been surprisingly hard to turn up in any big numbers around the Island. The bonito vanished a couple weeks ago, and the albies have yet to make their presence known within easy range of Point Jude as of this writing.
POINT JUDITH
Capt. Andy Dangelo of Maridee II rated it a pretty decent week of fishing both in- and offshore. The bass fishing has been a bit streaky, the fish scattered around the high ground off the SW Corner, and feeding during short windows of tide. But there have been some quality fish in the mix, stripers in the 25- to nearly 40-pound range, along with blues to 15 pounds or better. The North End has fits and starts of action. Most of their action—per the norm—has been on the wires, snapping ‘chutes and trolling frames or the big garden-hose snakes that sometimes fool the day’s biggest. Most trips have seen limits lately. The sea bass fishing has been fairly good, though you’ll pick through quite a few miniatures to get at the keepers in most of the spots off the south and west sides. Dangelo fished the beach one day early-week, and noted there’s quite a bit of life down the line to the west—the best of the action west of the Breachway of late. They found birds and breaking fish outside Fresh Pond Rocks, and took a dozen stripers on short order jigging, culling out a couple keepers from a stack of schoolies, as well as some bluefish. Continuing west, they had another shot of life around Weekapaug—Old Reef and outside the Carousel—putting a few more solid keeper bass in the boat, some throwbacks, and a bunch of blues. Shark fishing was excellent over the weekend. Working a nice temperature edge somewhere south of the Gully, his charter started off their efforts with a bang, bringing a mako that would later scale around 200 pounds on the scale at Snug Harbor to the boat. They followed that first keeper fish with hopes of tangling with a big blue dog, but had to settle for a hammerhead, Dangelo estimated at around 175 pounds. Returning to the scene of the crime after the early-week cold snap, they discovered that the nice edge they’d worked before the weather shift had evaporated, the surface temp down five degrees. They found some good-looking water, and worked some hours for their one fish for the day, a monster blue shark pushing the 300-pound mark. It’s a good time to fish, but the hour glass is draining quickly. If you keep kicking that charter you’ve been talking about down the road, you’ll be putting up the Christmas tree trying to figure out where fall went: You can reach Capt. Andy at 401.788.6012.
NEWPORT
I called my old friend, noted fish-writer, Charley Soares, who said he’s been into a shot of good bass—four over the 30-pound mark one trip last week—in waters other than Block Island. When I prodded him for additional details, he was pleased for the opportunity to share the finer detail. “In the Atlantic Ocean with a rod and reel,” he announced. He noted that there hjave been some absolute gorilla bluefish in the mix as well, including one fish last week that scaled 15 pounds, 14 ounces, caught on a white Hogy soft plastic. With the closure of the commercial striper season, there’s been a major decrease in the effort around Newport. Folks are out and about trying to round up sea bass on the various wrecks and rockpiles between the old Brenton Tower rubble south of Jamestown all the way to Land’s End. The scup, it seems, are still up in the rocks. Soares did confirm that it was a bizarre season around Sakonnet, where, after a number of years of some of the state’s best fluke fishing, the slab stock pulled on big no-show in 2013—as did the fleet that would have been there.
Pete and Scott over at the Saltwater Edge passed along the word that there are indeed some albies around now. The albies mentioned in last week’s report were questionable—the guys who brought word to the shop initially could not substantiate the fish they’d reported—but that fishery has since taken shape up and down the line. Pete Graeber noted he’s been out chasing them from Newport westward as far as the Race, and there are reliable reports of droves of them over at Montauk as of launch time. The scup are still thick in the Bay, up in the Sakonnet River, but they’ve yet to fill in on the hard pieces out front in any real concentrations. Sea bass are abundant to say the least; the trick is to find fish of the right size—or more specifically, a bunch of them with a tolerable ratio of keepers to minis. There are blues all along the oceanfront and around the corner up to around the Newport Bridge as of Friday morning, Sept. 20, with birds marking the knots of bait and fish. There are still some fluke around in Newport Harbor and out front in the deeper water—contrary to the prevailing notions about those fish, their exodus out of local waters is by no means a linear, one-shot deal. Tautog are stirring in the stones, but it will be a long while before water temps move into their optimal range.
big two, it’s quite common to see a whole variety of southern New England staples like tautog, triggerfish, striped bass, blues, codfish, pollock, hake, fluke, etc. cross the rails in a day. If you’ve spent too many days these last two months waiting on persnickety bass, or dragging huge baits for a shot at a 12-pound doormat fluke, a scup/sea bass run could be just what the doctor ordered to breathe some much-needed fun back in your fishery. Striper trips will continue into September, so long as interest, the stripers, and weather hold together, but now more than ever, it’s critically important to make your reservations well ahead of time for these Wednesday-Friday-Saturday-night Block Island runs, which sail at 7 p.m. and return to the barn around 1 a.m. You can get further details by calling 401.789.9250.
NEWPORT
The lads over at the Saltwater Edge noted the shop is still in the throes of bonito fever, as all the tunoid freaks are still on patrol, awaiting the first fresh report of a real, live encounter in the wake of the soggy weather early-week. Only rumblings at press time came from one source who had one working a bucktail in the lower Sakonnet River with other species in mind. Still, it’s bonito news since the weather, and that’s welcome news. The offshore guys are—well—offshore as this goes up, so look for further intel next week. The sttriped bass fishing is still in the summer pattern, with not much doing locally just yet, and Block Island in a bit of a lull. There are bluefish just about everywhere—same for sea bass and scup—while the fluke fishing is still kicking around the mouth of Narragansett Bay, and at intervals up a bit further, nearer Newport Harbor.
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