October 26th, 2018 Stripers Blitzing Consistently Around Islands Before and During Noreaster

I went out with a buddy for an afternoon casting session.  We were rewarded with many schoolie striper blitzes in a few different locations.  I tied up some flies the night before to mimic the peanut bunker that is plentiful in our area right now, that I knew the stripers would love to munch on.  We used 8 and 9 weight set ups.

As it got darker, We casted top water around structure and I got a huge blow up on my spook, then the fish immediately started pulling drag for about 5 seconds.  Then it spit the hook.  I think I lost a keeper sized bass, up to a 20lber.  This time of year you can be rewarded with a quality bass when you put the time in casting lures around structure.

The water temp. is in the mid 50s for the most part, which the bass love.  It makes them want to eat, and thats what they have been doing!

There are a lot of boats togging around the islands, doing pretty well.  I have not yet given it a shot, but I know it is action packed fishing.

I also went out the next day during the storm.  There was  a lot of birds in the harbor diving after peanut bunker that were fleeing attack from schoolies below.  There were about 6-7 anglers fishing from shore that had done pretty well.  My plan was to fish the harbor as the tied dropped.  I thought that the bass and peanut bunker would filter out and continue feeding into the harbor.  That plan did not come to fruition. We were pelted with rain and hit with wind the entire time which made fishing very difficult among the 3' swell.

CONCLUSION: The pre-Noreaster bite was much better than during the noreaster

October 22, 2018 Albies Leave + Striper Bite Turns On

WIND and Temperature Drops Cause Albies to Leave and Striper Bite to Turn On.

We have seen both day and night time temperatures drop significantly over the last week from daytime highs in the 70's to now 50's and nighttime highs in the 50's to now in the low 30's.  Along with the temperature drop, there has been a consistent 15mph or better wind that has made it difficult to fish outside of the islands since last Tuesday!  There have been steady 2' waves outside.  The water temps have dropped from the mid 60's to the low to mid 50's!

The boats that are fishing are mostly forced to fish inside the islands for stripers and blues.  The boats that are going outside are mainly anchoring for tog with pretty good results.  I have friends that are limiting out on Tog in 1-2 hours.

As a result of the huge temperature swing, the albies have unfortunately been filtering out, although I have heard of some being caught just east of here as of Friday.  I think the best albie fishing in our area is behind us at this point.  However the temperature drop has sparked a local feeding frenzy of schoolie stripers inside the islands, which can be seen blowing up on peanut bunker in the mornings and evenings.  There have been a good amount of birds on them, so finding them shouldn't be a problem.  I have noticed that the better striper fishing is usually out of the wind in the harbor and smaller coves that are hidden.

October 13th, 2018 Blitzs, Bill, Brian, Blues, Burts, and Stripers too!

Bill with his first Albie

Started out fishing at 6:30.  We didn't even have to leave the slip to come across schoolie size bass and tailor blues attacking the huge school of peanut bunker.  We spent about an hour messing around with these little guys.  Then shot out to behind the islands to cast plugs for stripers, but we were not that successful, most likely due to the fact that it was almost dead low tide.
We then headed to Westport (thanks to a friend who called us) to look for albies.  We instantly came a cross multiple pods, and began chasing them around a bit.
Then the schools broke up a bit and spread out, which made getting a cast into them more difficult.  Once we did, we started hooking up.  The birds were hot on the tails of any albie action beginning to erupt, which is something I have not witnessed on the CT side locally up until now.  I did see it on the LI side, however prior.  The wind kicked up from the West, and so did the waves.  We headed in for 12 with 2 albies, multiple small blues and multiple small stripers under our belt for the day.

Brian with his first Albie

Didn't have to go far to find awesome action

Hooked up!

October 11th, 2018 Albie Observations 2018

Afternoon Bite Sucks!

On days when the morning through mid day bite is on fire (locally), and across on LI, the afternoon bite has consistently  been awful.  It is a miracle to find a couple of fish, let alone hook them.  Meanwhile during the day friends are reporting catches of 6-15 albies.


Albie Observations for 2018...

• 9am-2pm is best when tide is moving
• Slack high, or slack low shuts off bite completely
• If you go fishing in afternoon/evening, consider yourself lucky to see 1-2 small pods
• Color of lure does not matter
• Consistent mild weather patterns produce best...ex. a few days of the same wind produce best
• If the wind switches directions drastically the bite shuts off completely for that entire day
• Light west or north wind is best. South Wind is ok if its not greater than 10mph.  EAST WIND SUCKS!!!
• Bright sunny days are best.  Cloudy/rainy days are no good
• If the waves and wind are greater that 10 mph and greater than 1-2' don't bother fishing
• Move the boat only to close distance, don't run and gun
• By the time you get to the pod you saw breaking they will be down, hope for a second feeding in the same area
• Fluorocarbon size does not matter.  I have caught them on 12lb, my friend has caught them on 25lb
• There have been many small pods of 1-5 fish where the fish are feeding over a large area
• I have only seen 1 or 2 larger pods of 50 or more fish feeding together
• The fish are staying near structure and running the shoreline in 3'-40' of water

October 3-9th, 2018

Nice, calm, Days Produce.  Windy, choppy, overcast days don't.

I spent a total of 17 hours on the water over the last 4 days with very limited success.  After hearing a very promising report from a good friend, I fished with my wife on a very calm days with partly cloudy skies on the outgoing tide.  We had fish inside and outside the islands.  What started out as a few fish popping here and there later turned into many fish (mainly 1-3) fish popping quite often. 

 My wife caught one fist cast and landed it quickly. We branched off from that area and went to deeper water where we found a pod of probably 50 albies feeding ferociously.  My wife hooked up, then dropped it.  I, then hooked up and landed one on a small Sebile stick shad.  Never had tried that lure before but it provided me with several fish and a few more follows that day.  

We also drove to LI, but were late to the party because when we got there it seemed as though the action was tapering off.  So we came back to the islands and found fish feeding.  We had a steady pick till the outgoing tide reached slack, which is when all action died completely.

I went out Friday afternoon with high hopes after hearing the same spots where hot again.  I couldn't find the fish, probably because it was slack when I went out.  I waited around and kept looking.  Finally found a small pod working an area where are large amount of water moves through the islands.  I could not connect because I was bombarded with 6 boats on the same pod in seconds of them popping up.

Saturday, the wind shifted South and it really messed up the albie bite locally.  The strong wind from the South made the water get churned up and 2 footers were the norm all day.  I had to focus my efforts in and around the islands, which I used as shelter to hide from the swells.  I went out again later in the day with similar results...no albies.  However a lot of bunker schools showed up just East of the Islands.  There had been reports of some stripers and blues on them.  We snagged and dropped a few bunker and they were chewed up by blues.  We ended the evening by catching a 6lb blue on a deadly dick casting around the bunker schools.

Sunday the wind let up, I went out in the afternoon from 3-6pm.  I drove from the islands to Stratford.  The day before was apprently stellar.  Sunday morning there were also fish seen breaking inside the islands, however, again when I went out, there were no albies seen, let alone caught.

Monday the wind shifted again from the East which created 3-4 swells inside the islands which made navigating difficult, let alone nearly impossible to spot an albie breaking the surface with all the whitewater.  There were no albies seen, once again.

Tuesday's report from friends was there was fish everywhere.  The one conclusion I can make it that the nicer the weather, the better the albie fishing locally.  Anytime the wind kicks up over 10mph and changes directions drastically the fish really seem to hate that.  It is also very evident that they are not showing themselves whenever the waves are greater than 1' chop.

Another observation that I have made is that they are not too line shy, and indiscriminate when it comes to lure selection or color.  So far this year I have caught them on 15lb yellow powerpro main line, 12lb test fluorocarbon, 7/8 oz Hogy epoxy jigs in purple, pink, bone, olive, fluorescent yellow

I love fishing with my wife! She is the most enthusiastic and vocal fisherman that I know (besides myself) and that makes it so much fun.  Not to mention I have never met anyone that gets bit so quickly and easily.  She routinely casts into the mix and hooks up in the first try.

Huckleberry  with  an albie.

BASS AND BLUES: Showing up Early morning and evening around bunker schools.  Snag and drop or cast large plugs.

SCHOOLIE BASS: Can be caught casting small lures around islands.  Acion should pick up by later in the month.

ALBIES: HOT action depending on day and weather.

PORGIES and SEA BASS: Drop a jig down almost anywhere there is structure.  You will catch them.

September 30th, 2018 (Tight Lined Slam Tournament) WE WON!

 As I am sitting here staring at my computer on a drairy Tuesday morning I am daydreaming about the amazing weekend I had fishing the 1st annual Tightlined Slam Tournament with a couple good friends.  This weekend was filled with laughs, albies, and a lot of dropped fish!  We thought we were for sure not even going to place in the tournament, because of the below average sized striped bass and bluefish that we caught.  However we were pleasantly surprised, later at the awards ceremony when it was announced that we we won first place for the team category.

We focused the mornings from 6am-8am on casting lures around the islands hoping to get a few large striped bass or blues, but that just did not happen.  The biggest striped bass we got was about 21-22" and the biggest bluefish we got were 17-18".  We spent the majority of the day focused on chasing down albies and targeting bluefish by finding bunker schools and throwing plugs around them in hopes of eliciting a strike.

Albies: The albies were thick around the islands, but we never saw more than a few fish pop up at the same time.  Mainly just 1-5 fish would feed at once.  We still managed to connect with a few by casting Hogy Epoxy jigs and soft plastics.  We continued searching East and then across to LI.  We were rewarded on LI with a flurry of action, including the only bonito landed of the tournament.  It seemed that there was a school of bonito mixed in with the albies.  We just happen to get lucky.

Striped Bass:  We focused on casting lures around the islands with very little success. 

Bluefish:  We focused on casting big lures into bunker schools.  We probably hit 10-1 bunker schools this weekend with only 2 bunker schools having blues under them.  Of those two schools, we dropped a few that attacked our lures and some just followed our lure but did not commit.

The conditions were perfect on Saturday.  Sunday the wind kicked up and put the albies down apparently.  They were no where to be seen on the CT side and only a few popped up on the LI side.