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.

September 27, 2018 Better late than Never (ALBIES ARRIVE!)

I am happy, and relieved to report; Albies have arrived locally according to a few sources. I have not been able to get out this week because of work, obligations, and weather.  Hopefully they stick around for a while.

September 24, 2018 Still NO ALBIES...But More Optimistic

After hearing reports of albies as close as Milford, and Port Jefferson, NY on Saturday and Sunday I am much more optimistic about them just being late rather than not showing at all.  In fact the Eastern side of the state saw a significant influx in albies over the last few days which bodes well for us in Western sound, because usually after a few days of a strong Easterly blow and a full moon, traditionally the ablies should be headed our way, one can only hope.

When I went out Sunday morning I had hopes of covering a lot of ground based on the forecast of 5 mph winds, however I was met with significantly different conditions once I left the harbor.  Strong winds from the East of at least 10-15 mph and steady 2 footers with an occasional 3 footer mixed made traveling anywhere difficult on my boat.  I did see many birds diving for the plethora of bait stacked up off Westport.  There were even blues breaking on the surface which made for a very fall like mood.  The small blues almost tricked me into thinking the albies had arrived.  There was a fleet of boats all with the hard tails in mind circling the area, with little to show for their efforts.  Hopefully this is the week that we finally see some hard tail action!

September 21, 2018 (NO ALBIES!)

I am very reluctant to make this post because I keep hoping that any day will be the day when the albies invade the western sound.  Unfortunately that has not yet happened.  Supposedly there are a few pods around, that  a few fisherman have spotted, but those are very few and far between.  I have been out a handful of times and I have not come across anything that I could positively say was in fact a false albacore.  The only positive reports that I have heard of have come from online fishing reports from Fisherman's world.  I have only heard of one, 1st hand account of a local fisherman seeing albies feeding in the area.  At this same time last year we landed over 20 albies on my boat.  I have kept a log for the last 4 seasons and this is the only year that I have not seen an albie at this time yet. I am very concerned, because they are my all time favorite fish to catch.  Older, more experienced fisherman have reminded me that false albacore are never a guarantee.  The last 4 years just so happens, have been the best showing of albies in the western sound in recent history.  There have been plenty of years where they have not shown up at all.  The bottom line is, we have just gotten used to them showing up and that is not the norm.  I just hope that some how, we get a few schools to wander this way so we can get an opportunity to connect with one of the best fighting pelagic fish that graces our waters.

There is an abudance of bait in the Western sound; peanut bunker,silversides, and rainbait.  I have witnessed a blitz of small bass just outside the islands where we caught them on epoxy jigs.  I also got in on some small bluefish blitzing behind cockenoe.  I traveled all the way to middleground lighthouse, and had nothing more to show for it than some sea bass and XL porgies.