BLUES IN JUNE

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BLUES IN JUNE ARE BUSTING OUT ALL OVER!
BY DICK ALLEY
June 1998

JUNE & BLUES ARE BUSTING OUT ALL OVER!

by Dick Alley

Author's note: This story was first published in 1998 in the New England Fisherman magazine. It has been updated and modified for my blog. -DWA

     It's that time again anglers. Every year around the third week in May, enormous schools of bluefish invade Long Island  Sound's east end. They first show up off Wading River and on the Connecticut side, the West Haven sand bar but that's a little bit later on. From Wading River, followed by a short blitz off Port Jefferson on the Long Island side, they move into the mid-Sound waters, settling in over the mid-Sound trench where water depths top 100 feet and lobster pots dot the surface.

My first experience with Long Island Sound bluefish occurred more years ago than I care to remember. Ed Stalling and I had just met, and he invited me to ride across the Sound in his 16-foot lapstrake Lyman to fish for striped bass,

          We left before dawn traveling across the Sound to Crane's Neck, where we cast big swimming plugs to good-sized stripers rolling among the rocks close to shore. We hooked a couple and lost them just as fast, and managed to boat a couple of smaller fish in the five-to-eight pound class. Too soon, it was time to head back to Westport.
      It was mid-June and a warm cloudy, windless day, so Ed's little runabout skimmed the surface as we cruised  towards the Connecticut shoreline.

Ed Boland with a typical mid-Sound blue.

Visibility was down in the haze, so when the engine suddenly went from a roar to an idle, I asked what was wrong.
     "Nothing's wrong",  replied Ed. "Look at those fish." He pointed to a small group of diving gulls and as my eyes adjusted to the haze, I could see the fish  rolling beneath them. We were still rigged for bass, with no wire leaders. Ed quickly flipped out a bucktail and began a jerky retrieve, causing the little lure to dance a couple of feet below the surface. I still hadn't made a cast when Ed whooped as his one-handed rod arced and the reel screamed. I dropped my own bucktail a few feet short of the rolling fish, and it immediately bent double and then went slack as a blue grabbed hold, slammed my bucktail and sliced the monofilament in less time than it took for my heart to skip a beat.
     The bluefish were small in those days, averaging a couple of pounds -----of nitroglycerine! Having recently made the conversion from fresh water to salt water fishing, I really wasn't prepared for the stamina,  strength and downright spectacular fighting ability of even small bluefish.
     I struggled to tie on another bucktail and made another cast. By this time, I was so excited I forgot to open the bail on the reel . Somehow I finally managed to drop my bucktail next to another  swirling fish, and that critter turned around, clamped down and headed for Montauk. I was doing better  until I let the line go slack for a second as those sharp teeth found the monofilament again.   
     It took a while to lose most of our lures. In the process, I landed a fish of about four pounds, and Ed did better, boating a couple. We were into the fish for at least a couple of hours, and came back to the dock long after we'd planned.
     It was our first-ever encounter with the early-summer top-water bluefish experience, and while that day was decades ago, there's never been a summer since that I've failed to find choppers in the mid-Sound trench. Sometimes the blues are bigger in numbers and sometimes smaller, but generally, the size of these fish has increased dramatically over the years.
     It appears they've become more sophisticated and difficult to catch  as the years have passed. They're spawning and are often finicky, sometimes downright stubborn, almost always  frustrating us to the Nnnth degree, but they can be caught.
 
     WHERE TO LOOK ? - From Westport, it's about a ten minute cruise from Buoy 24 to the bluefish grounds. A compass heading of 150 degree's out of Westport, brings you to the middle of the Sound, where water depths approach 100 feet and lobster pots dot the surface every few feet. God Bless GPS units. Plug in the numbers when they're first located, and you'll enjoy good fishing for weeks.  Usually, prevailing weather conditions at this time of year are as good as they get, with little or no wind, few storms and lots of sunshine.
      The simplest way to find the fish first time out is to keep a sharp eye ahead of the boat as you cruise toward the mid-Sound trench.  Small pods of blues cruise on the surface and will usually swirl away just ahead of the boat as you approach. Spot the swirls and begin casting.  On the really calm days, they can be seen splashing from a couple of hundred feet away. Sometimes diving gulls will mark a large pod of fish.  Pin-point casting is one key to catching fish.. Hit them on the head with a lure and they'll turn and attack by instinct. Miss them by a yard and they'll ignore it.

WHAT TO USE:
   
  Small poppers in the 1/2 ounce to 3/4 ounce sizes work well. I favor  poppers like the 1/2 ounce Pencil Popper, and the little Creek Chub poppers up to about 3/4 ounces. Bucktails will often draw hits when poppers won't, but be prepared to lose a few. Wire leaders kill the action on a bucktail. Be willing to sacrifice a couple of lures and you could have a bunch of fun and a fish or two   Metal spoons like the Fiord, the Hopkins and the Kastmaster will catch fish too.

This blue hit a trolled bucktail in the eastern Sound

Some  days  you can throw everything, hit them on the head, tickle their snouts and think you're doing everything right. They'll be rolling and swirling in every direction, and they won't hit anything you throw. That's the  time to troll. No, don't break out the wire line. Simply tie on a Redfin, Rebel, Bomber Lure, Gag's Grabber, or just about any of the swimming minnows, and troll it about a hundred feet behind the boat. Using light lures, you can troll with spinning or conventional gear. The plug only has to run a foot or two beneath the surface.  Bet on catching fish within a very few minutes. Once again, forget the wire leader. No, I'm not trying to sell more lures for the manufacturers. These fish are very finicky, and eliminating the wire leader can be the difference between catching and cursing.
   Blues attack a bait from the rear, and will clamp down on the bottom half of the lure. Every so often, a blue will climb up the lure and cut the mono, but you'll land more fish than you'll lose lures. Poppers by their very action bouncing on the surface, cause the blues to grab the lure wherever they can, and so they must be fished with a wire leader.    Be lucky enough to find the blues just after the spawn ends, and they can be especially aggressive, striking anything and everything for one of those days you'll remember all year. Eventually, these blues will quit their mid-Sound shenanigans, school up and head for the shallower waters to seek out sand eels along the beaches and bunker in the bays and rivers, and when they do, it will be time for another story, utilizing different and only a little bit less exciting methods. Then again, they may choose to remain in the deep water,  feeding the depths through the summer months and if they do, we'll have to break out the wire line outfits and talk about that favorite old method.
     Bluefish cover the big picture. From fly-fishing to bait fishing, casting, trolling, no matter how we do it, catching blues will bring something special to the season ahead. Enjoy!
                                       

And as the season winds down ?- This trolled bluefish hit in OCTOBER.

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