November 4th and 5th, 2017 Hero to Zero (East Wind Sucks!)

My friend Bill with his first albie, in November!

The title says it all! East wind sucks.  I experienced phenomenal albie fishing on Saturday.  A friend and myself caught 4 albies.  There were albies everywhere, outside the islands, inside the islands, and all the way up inside Norwalk harbor, north of the gas dock.  It seemed like they were everywhere they should be and shouldn't be.  I saw them feed with subtle sips on the surface, as well as full out launch themselves 3-4' out of the water.  We caught them on bone and silver 7/8 epoxy jigs.  I even found a bunker school with big blues on them.  I threw a spook and connected multiple times with 27" fish.

Bunker school being harassed by big blues

Then the wind shifted overnight. It was blowing 15 out of the East on Sunday morning and there were no albies to be found.  I checked everywhere; inside of islands, outside, harbor, Saugatuck.  The East wind has once again proven to be a major factor in fizzling out what was extraordinary fishing the day before.

A friend took this pic of me hooked up with an albie

awesome colors

Jones Brothers 1910 LT Cape Fisherman working some albies on a beautiful fall day.

November 2, 2017 November is the New October!

We left the dock around 3:15 and were on surface blitzs of schoolie bass within minutes of leaving the slip.  We had the fish to ourselves for hours.  They fed with reckless abandon on peanut bunker.  The fish were so plentiful that you can choose to blind cast a fly, or spook and still hook up regularly, or sight fish to blitzing fish.    The tide finally was at dead low when the action started to wind down, so we moved on.  We fished some jetties and structure, finding blitzing fish and plenty of action everywhere we went.  All the fish were 20" or smaller.  No albies were seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 28, 2017 Acres of Blitzing Bass and Albies

 

 

 

 

This is what the fall run is about here in Western Long Island Sound!  The thermometer read 40 degrees when I left the house and even though it warmed up to 60 degrees later in the day, that autumn chill was in the air.  Within the first 3 mins of leaving the dock my friend Brian and I encountered our first small bass blitz.  We quickly got 3 or 4 small bass each then were ready to move on.  Within minutes we ran into the next bass blitz.  The next group were all cookie cutter 20" fish with the occasional chubby fish mixed in.  They had peanut bunker pressed against a rocky shoreline on the main land in 7 feet of water.  The bait was spraying clear out of the water and the water erupted as bass exploded on the baitfish.  An epoxy jig worked as effectively as a jighead and soft plastic.  Eventually we we caught enough schoolies, and we were ready to move on to our next quary of the morning; albies.  A call from a friend pointed me in the right direction of where to find them.  The albies were in the new location, but spread out in small groups of 1-3 fish.  We could not connect.  When they are that sporadic it is difficult to get a single fish to commit to your offering.  We left fish to find fish and it paid off.  Behind the islands we found another pod, and an albie quickly ate my epoxy jig.  That bite died down so we again moved, only to find more bass blitzing close to shore.  Caught a few then moved east.  We found acres of bass and albies blitzing very sporadically spread out over acres of open water.  It was difficult to single out just one group to cast to, but once you did you were rewarded with a bass.  The albies in that group were as sporadic as the first group we came across in the morning.  It was very difficult to leave the fish biting, but I needed to get home and it was very frustrating knowing there were albies there that were just a little too spread out to bite.  The name of the game was covering ground, and not being afraid to leave fish to find fish.  When its good, its good, and there were fish around almost every corner.

October 25, 2017 Schoolie Blitzs Galore!

On October 24th we got hit with high winds from the south which pushed big swells into the harbor.  Any boat on the outside of my marina fell victim to the high winds.  Some boats were smashing together, a few boats had their D rings broken.  My bracket had the hooks broken off, which secured the boat to the frog hooks, which attached the boat to the dock from the stern.  In the midst of the storm I got a call that I needed to get down to the dock to secure my boat.  I did not have time to repair anything while the boats were hitting together and while the battling the roller coaster like movements of the dock. So I hopped on the boat and two friends guided me out of my slip.  I brought the boat to another marina way up river, near 95, which was prearranged by the dock master of my marina. 

The next day, after making repairs to my slip and before bringing the boat back I decided to try to get a little fishing in. The wind was almost still, and there was a light rain and overcast skies. I did not have to go far before I saw splashes and the frantic acrobatic maneuvers of gulls swooping down to scoop up spraying baitfish.  I motored up, to find stripers attacking peanut bunker.  I caught a few 20 inchers, then continued searching outside of the harbor.  I casted a spook against a rocky shoreline and was rewarded with another pair of eager schoolies around the same size.  Continuing my search, I left and motored on the inside of the islands, only to find the same blitzing stoolies continuing from Norwalk through Westport.  I stayed on these fish for an hour or two.  They were fun to catch on top water.  This is great news for upcoming years of striper fishing in the islands, because there were many fish in the same size class feeding on the surface.

I did not see any false albacore.  

October 22, 2017 Albies with the Wifey!

My wife and I were able to sneak away from the baby for a couple of hours to get on the albie bite that I heard from a few people was on, inside the islands.  We focused mainly in the small bays between the islands and the Norwalk/ Westport shoreline.  The albies were there, but difficult to locate because theY infrequently popped up.

When they did, I was able to notice that there were small pods of no more than 10 fish popping up 5 to 10 mins apart.  The fish, would on occasion stay up for 30 seconds or more, which allowed us to motor up and get a cast into the breaking fish.  My wife seemed to have the magic touch that day because she hooked and landed 2, while I got none.  We were both using Hogy Epoxy jigs, in the same size.  Hers was silver.  Mine was bone, that could have been the difference.  I even switched up the color a few times to electric chicken and pink, but that did not work. Her casts were on point, directly into the mix, and she got bit almost instantly each time.  We were surprised to see a 4-5" peanut bunker flop out of the mouth of the first albie when Diana was about to release it.  So, don't be afraid to throw larger profile baits.  I think it helps to grab the attention of the fish quicker.

It was a great day on the water spent with my wife.  Her and I have not gotten a chance to fish together much because one of us (usually, Diana) needs to be home to watch the baby.  I am fortunate in the sense that I get to spend every afternoon with baby, where as my wife looks forward to the weekend so she and Lucy can spends some quality time together. It was a very special day for me, Diana is my favorite person to fish with, because  her enthusiasm when she hooks an albie is contagious, as you can see by the huge smile on her face in the pics.

What is important to note is that while the albie fishing on the CT side of the sound has been on fire one day, desolate the next the patterns of the fish are still on track.  What I mean is that usually this time of year they can be found inside the islands, and that is where we found them. However talking to a friend who went out the next day, they were gone. Once again, while I really don't know for sure the reasoning behind there extreme presence and then extreme absence, I think it has a lot to do with wind direction and temperature.  This year it has been much warmer into October than years past.  Which in my opinion has delayed their infiltration further into the sound and deeper within the islands as apposed to years past where they were somewhat more consistent. 

As you may know certain winds are better for fishing in certain areas. One saying that holds true for the Western sound is:

"When it blows from the west, the fish bite best,

When it blows from the east, the fish bite least

When it blows from the south, it blows the bait right in their mouth."

In my opinion a west wind or south wind (with moderation) proves to offer the best all around fishing opportunities for this area.