Weekly Rhode Island Fishing Reports
By Zach Harvey
True (Longfin) Albies Make Appearance Within Easy Range of B.I.
H ere in our second week of our brand-new weekly Friday weekend planner reports, it’s good to get solid word from folks around Rhode Island waters as well as offshore grounds well south of Block Island, that the fishing is quite good, almost no matter what you target. The sea bass are beginning to pile up on the harder pieces of sunken real estate south, east and west, while the fluking’s holding steady, and bass activity continues at a world-class level over at the Island. With the considerable time and effort that goes into compiling these free, ultra-current fishing reports, I hope you’ll take the time to sign up for the weekly updates that will land in your inbox by lunch time every Friday. I doubt you’ll find better or more timely RI reports anywhere for a premium fee, and I’m absolutely positive you won’t find that for the low, low price of FREE anywhere else. Tell all your friends, and let’s get this thing cranking! If you have some good intel you’d like to pass along to CAM-RI readers, blast an e-mail my way by 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon, and I’ll include it if I can: zhfished@gmail.com.
WESTERLY
Mike Wade at Watch Hill Outfitters reported continued activity in the nighttime surf out along Naps—mainly for eel-slingers or guys willing to soak chunks of fresh bunker on long wee-hours watches—but noted a week in the climatic inferno super-heated at least the surface temps up and down the beach, causing a bit of a forced evacuation for the body of striped bass that had been holding on the higher ground around the Watch Hill-Fishers Island reefs and rockpiles. Meanwhile, an abundance of sand eels and other fish-bait around Little Narragansett Bay up into the corner by Watch Hill Light seems to have set some better hot-weather fluking in depths of 30 feet or much less. It’s not always the case that hot weather runs all the slabs out into deeper water; and in the case of the beachfront from Weekapaug westward toward Watch Hill, where there has been some continued drag pressure out on the deeper lanes of open bottom. The bottom line is that you may fare better drifting shallow, possibly with little 1/8- to ¼-ounce Spro jigs fished on a long dropper above a slightly larger model to tend bottom. Sea bass numbers are on the rise almost universally, though you’re still allowed a measly three fish at 13 inches or better—a catch that can probably be knocked out in a matter of a half-hour on the rockier bottom. Mike headed over to Block Island’s SW Corner on Wednesday morning, arriving pre-dawn on reports of some better bass fishing across the pond. Unfortunately, what they found, as soon as the sun lit the eastern sky, were massive clouds of microbait and roughly four billion bluefish in the 20- to 21-inch range; their bass score came up well short of expectations.
SNUG HARBOR
Matt Conti from Snug Harbor Marina noted the bass fishing hit high gear through the first half of the week along the SW Corner at the Island, as well as the north end. A huge influx of sand eels and other small bait has made the bass in the former area a bit persnickety in their feeding habits, but guys have generally been cleaning up trolling the old, no-frills umbrella rigs on wire. The eeling has been pretty slow and, thanks to a spike in bluefish numbers over the last week, cost-intensive. The good news is that the bigger bass, mostly fish from the high teens to the mind-30-pound range, have been much more receptive to snakes after sundown. Speaking of, the North Rip has turned out continued excellent numbers of quality bass on night tides. Fluking seems to have come up a notch or two up and down the line, with better action locally out in the deeper, hard-charging 55- to 75-foot grounds out in front of the Center Wall and east of Scarborough. The nearer parts of Newport oceanfront have also been fair to good, but for reasons no one seems to have put together, Sakonnet has never really hit stride so far this season—a surprise to many, given that area’s well-deserved reputation in recent years as one of the state’s premier slab spots. The offshore scene also showed marked improvement these last seven days, though Matt noted two factors have made it a bit trickier to home in on the right water. First, the epic Blue Planet-worthy whale-bait-bird-basking shark-tuna shows continued in various zones south of the Island—the school bluefins right in all the visible life, where a few boats scored jigging or trolling—but these visually stunning pelagic food chain events have been fast-moving (and thus hard to find with any consistency). Another issue has been the super-heating of surface waters, which tends to raise the readings to one roughly uniform temperature, rendering Sea Surface Temp satellite charts more or less useless to guys searching for the cleaner blue eddy water and the subsurface temperature breaks that gather life. Better news—damned good news in fact—has been confirmed word of some encounters with longfin albacore, blue marlin, mahi mahi and other distant-waters critters as close to home as the Horns. A bit farther off, there was some water around the Shipping Lanes south of the Dump that had a virtual aquarium of bluewater life in it: marlin (blue for sure, and probably whites, too, mahis, yellowfins and albacore, wahoo and who knows what else were all landed there through Wednesday.
POINT JUDITH
Capt. Kelly Smith of the C-Devil II was pleased to report some grounds for optimism on the “local” (i.e. south of Block) offshore scene, specifically a nice catch of four true longfin albacore in the vicinity of the Suffolk about 40 miles off on Wednesday with the Bill McNamara party. Smith noted they found loads of tinker mackerel in that general area the previous day while sharking with Gary White and family from Ohio, who managed a tally of three blue sharks up to a solid 275 pounds. Closer to home, Smith confirmed that a new body of bass and some blues moved in along with lots of sand eels and attendant bird activity along Block Island’s west side earlier in the week. Frames and spoons worked the best with full limits of Stripers and some blues and grabbing the occasional black sea bass on the frames. Monday, Larry Bannish and crew enjoyed non-stop action on both bass and blues. Fish ranged from keeper size to 30 pounds. Thursday, after a brief stint offshore, they were back to the bass grind with father and son, Khalil and Johnowen Habib, who limited out with bass to 35 pounds on a half-day mission to Block, then topped off the catch with some sea bass and blues. Capt. Kelly has limited openings—currently July 24, 25, and 31—and he’s particularly eager to get back outside to follow the progress of some fine-looking water and quality tuna fishing. Call soon to grab a date: 401.374.1439.
Capt. Russ Benn on the headboat Seven B’s V said they continued in half-day mode, sailing daily from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and again from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Fishing has run hot and cold along the beach, with brief windows of nicely-aligned drift conditions on both morning and afternoon trips—but not one more reliably than the other. Pool fish top out around 7 pounds on the local trips, and tend to be a bit larger on the 1 p.m.-to-8 p.m. Sunday Sunset Specials, when additional time on the clock lets Benn cover more ground. Bass trips Friday, Saturday and again Wednesday nights found continued excellent results over at the North Rip. The most recent trip Wedneday night decked numbers of bass, but no real slobs, with a pool-winner in thew high 20-pound class. Benn wanted readers to know that the morning half-day trips have been reserved for private charters, while afternoon trips remain open to the public. For additional scheduling info, or to make a reservation, call 401.789.9250.
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