June 23, 2018 BUNKER SCHOOLS, BASS, BLUES

The title says it all... Bunker School, Bass, and Blues has been the name of the game here in the western sound.  If you can find the bunker schools you will most likely be rewarded with big bass and blues most of the time.  I have been out a few times when it has been very difficult the bunker schools due to wind or the school just not being in the same location as I left them.  I have had to work hard to catch a few bunker. 


The best techniques have been live lining bunker or casting large plugs into the mix.  The bunker school bite seems to turn off at dark.  At that point I have been taking the bunker that we snagged in shallow, anchoring up, and chunking on the bottom till 11/12 at night with pretty good results.  There have been many stripers in our area even though they have not been showing themselves by busting the bunker all the time.  After anchoring in a various inshore spots I have had study action on multiple occasions at various stages of the tide.

James with a fatty!

 

Bro n law tyler with a nice 22lber

 Uncle Johns first bluefish

 Dad hah

28lber took a chunk at night

Steve on the board with a BLUE 1st cast

The Release

 

James with a 36lber

 Unlce Johns first striped bass

1st Post of 2018 in JUNE!

Wow! What a busy year it has been.  I ended up getting a late start putting the boat in the water this year due to my registration being mailed to the wrong address twice and a few engine issues.  But luckily it all got sorted out in time to fish the Bassapalooza tournament to benefit the Save the Sound organization.  Although my team did not place we still had a great time dodging thunderstorms, catching bass, and blues, and being in good company. Ironically I fished the day before the tournament with better results landing multiple 35" fish and 1 35+ lb fish which bottomed out my 30lb boga, so I don't exactly know how heavy it was but its was 43".

photo Cred. James Hollyday

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.