 1999 |
BLUES SETTLE IN FOR SUMMER!
by
Dick Alley
Blues arrived in Long Island Sound in late May. They alternately frustrate and thrill us on the surface for several weeks while spawning, but by July, they've either moved into the cool deep waters of the western Sound, or if there is an abundance of bunker, will follow them into the estuaries and harbor shallows to feed.
Bluefish are a puzzle at best. While scientist's rush to implement fish management plans, no one really knows if the problem is a shortage of fish or a change in the cycle. As far as Long Island Sound is concerned, we know that fishing ranges from fair to good from one year to the next but doesn't begin to compare with the super seasons of the late sixties and early seventies. Those were summers when we measured the success of a good fishing day by aching muscles and fatigue, rather than by numbers of fish caught.
When I became hooked on Long Island Sound fishing, back in the late fifties, we couldn't buy a bluefish on the Connecticut side of the Sound. Fishing was spelled striped bass, unless we were willing to drive to the east and the Race, the bluefish capital of the area. On a rare occasion, we would lose a favorite bass plug to a blue because we never used wire leaders. To catch even a three-or-four-pound blue on the Connecticut side would draw a table of listeners at the VFW. The ripping tides found in The Race always hosted blues.
My first bluefish trip was to Smithtown Bay on the Long Island side. Our tackle consisted of stiff jigging rods; 40-pound line, a conventional reel, and a Scotty Gray Rig consisting of several feathers strung above a diamond jig weighing 3 or 4 ounces. Fishing was no more difficult than dropping the jig to the bottom, lifting and lowering the rod tip a time or two, when one-two-three and sometimes a full rig of battling blues would be battled back to the boat.
In the late fifties, the blues suddenly showed up off the Connecticut shore in mid-summer.
IIt was probably the dense schools of sand eels almost thick enough to walk on, that first drew the smaller 3 and 4-pounders. That was followed by the influx of menhaden (bunker) schools that suddenly brought in bluefish of a size we had never seen before.
I can remember driving the 30 miles to New Haven when I received a call that a pair of 10-pound bluefish had been weighed in at Dee's Bait & Tackle. They were the biggest blues ever seen in that area and they had come from the Race, and the photos I took were featured in area newspapers the following week and even made the cove of The Fisherman.
The explosion that occurred in the late sixties was phenomenal.
Suddenly, everyone was catching fish topping ten pounds. Some ran into the high teens. Tackle and methods changed, with everyone suddenly fishing live or chunked bunker baits on heavy-duty tackle.
Bluefishing today welcomes any and all fishing methods. Tackle can run from ultra-light to conventional, to fly-fishing and to wire-line trolling. And that brings us to mid-summer fishing alternatives.
Wire-line trolling is one of the most effective methods of midsummer fishing in western Long Island Sound. When the hot days arrive, fish go deep. Sure, fishing the early-morning and late-evening tides can bring some surface action in the shallows, but for anglers who want to sleep late and head out mid-morning and return with a limit catch in mid-afternoon, wire-line trolling is the way to go.
The method requires special equipment. Rods should be sturdy and designed for wire line trolling with special guides and a roller tip to bear the pressure of the wire. The reel should be a fast-retrieve, large capacity reel, capable of holding 100 yards of 50-pound test backing, plus 100 yards of solid steel or braided wire line. I prefer wire testing 40-pounds for the solid wire and 60-pound test for the braided wire. They have about the same density, and will under most conditions, take a lure to a depth of 30 feet when 95 yards of wire is behind the boat.
Fishing in the Race or at Montauk is different, and sometimes requires more wire and sometimes less. Most skippers rig 200 yards of wire and mark it with colored tape so they can pick and choose the desired depth to run their lures. In the shallower, quieter waters of the western Sound, fish seem to hang at that depth of approximately 30-feet,
making it a simple matter to find the fish each time out.
I like to rig a monofilament leader, 10 to 15 feet in length between the end of the wire and the lure. It allows the lure to ride a few inches above the end of the wire, and provides more action than when the lure is close to the end of the wire.
Choosing lures is relatively simple. BIG LURE, BIG FISH! It's fact, not rhetoric. If there are big fish about, large swimming plugs such as the Atom, Reverse Atom, the Danny, or Rapala Magnums, will undeniably bring that bigger fish out of the crowd. With creel limits on bluefish, it's the way to go. Face it, an umbrella rig sporting four or five hooks, will bring fish in four or five at a time. They'll be smaller and your fishing day will be shortened considerably. Eel imitations are equally good lures, and large lures employing a single hook can allow for more releases if you want to release your fish.
Where to go? We've already mentioned the Race, which provides summer-long fishing and also hosts a large party and charter boat fleet on a daily basis. Further west, charter boats are fewer, and the action is spread out. Eaton's Neck and waters between it and Buoy 11B are favorite summertime trolling spots. The waters outside Port Jefferson Harbor hold good summertime bluefish populations. Mid-Sound waters can also host large schools of bluefish in the depths throughout the summer.
Come September, blues become restless and are on the move, seeking bait schools all along the Connecticut and Long Island shores. Large schools of small baitfish lead to dynamite surface action, and if baitfish and blues are bigger, live and chunked bunker can bring many a trophy into boat and shore. JULY is the start of steady bluefish action, but it will last well into November. When nothing else works this summer, rig the wire and try some trolling.
Blues arrived in Long Island Sound in late May. They alternately frustrate and thrill us on the surface for several weeks while spawning, but by July, they've either moved into the cool deep waters of the western Sound, or if there is an abundance of bunker, will follow them into the estuaries and harbor shallows to feed.
Bluefish are a puzzle at best. While scientist's rush to implement fish management plans, no one really knows if the problem is a shortage of fish or a change in the cycle. As far as Long Island Sound is concerned, we know that fishing ranges from fair to good from one year to the next but doesn't begin to compare with the super seasons of the late sixties and early seventies. Those were summers when we measured the success of a good fishing day by aching muscles and fatigue, rather than by numbers of fish caught.
When I became hooked on Long Island Sound fishing, back in the late fifties, we couldn't buy a bluefish on the Connecticut side of the Sound. Fishing was spelled striped bass, unless we were willing to drive to the east and the Race, the bluefish capital of the area. On a rare occasion, we would lose a favorite bass plug to a blue because we never used wire leaders. To catch even a three-or-four-pound blue on the Connecticut side would draw a table of listeners at the VFW. The ripping tides found in The Race always hosted blues.
My first bluefish trip was to Smithtown Bay on the Long Island side. Our tackle consisted of stiff jigging rods; 40-pound line, a conventional reel, and a Scotty Gray Rig consisting of several feathers strung above a diamond jig weighing 3 or 4 ounces. Fishing was no more difficult than dropping the jig to the bottom, lifting and lowering the rod tip a time or two, when one-two-three and sometimes a full rig of battling blues would be battled back to the boat.
In the late fifties, the blues suddenly showed up off the Connecticut shore in mid-summer.
IIt was probably the dense schools of sand eels almost thick enough to walk on, that first drew the smaller 3 and 4-pounders. That was followed by the influx of menhaden (bunker) schools that suddenly brought in bluefish of a size we had never seen before.I can remember driving the 30 miles to New Haven when I received a call that a pair of 10-pound bluefish had been weighed in at Dee's Bait & Tackle. They were the biggest blues ever seen in that area and they had come from the Race, and the photos I took were featured in area newspapers the following week and even made the cove of The Fisherman.
The explosion that occurred in the late sixties was phenomenal.
Suddenly, everyone was catching fish topping ten pounds. Some ran into the high teens. Tackle and methods changed, with everyone suddenly fishing live or chunked bunker baits on heavy-duty tackle.
Bluefishing today welcomes any and all fishing methods. Tackle can run from ultra-light to conventional, to fly-fishing and to wire-line trolling. And that brings us to mid-summer fishing alternatives.
Wire-line trolling is one of the most effective methods of midsummer fishing in western Long Island Sound. When the hot days arrive, fish go deep. Sure, fishing the early-morning and late-evening tides can bring some surface action in the shallows, but for anglers who want to sleep late and head out mid-morning and return with a limit catch in mid-afternoon, wire-line trolling is the way to go.
The method requires special equipment. Rods should be sturdy and designed for wire line trolling with special guides and a roller tip to bear the pressure of the wire. The reel should be a fast-retrieve, large capacity reel, capable of holding 100 yards of 50-pound test backing, plus 100 yards of solid steel or braided wire line. I prefer wire testing 40-pounds for the solid wire and 60-pound test for the braided wire. They have about the same density, and will under most conditions, take a lure to a depth of 30 feet when 95 yards of wire is behind the boat.
Fishing in the Race or at Montauk is different, and sometimes requires more wire and sometimes less. Most skippers rig 200 yards of wire and mark it with colored tape so they can pick and choose the desired depth to run their lures. In the shallower, quieter waters of the western Sound, fish seem to hang at that depth of approximately 30-feet,
making it a simple matter to find the fish each time out.I like to rig a monofilament leader, 10 to 15 feet in length between the end of the wire and the lure. It allows the lure to ride a few inches above the end of the wire, and provides more action than when the lure is close to the end of the wire.
Choosing lures is relatively simple. BIG LURE, BIG FISH! It's fact, not rhetoric. If there are big fish about, large swimming plugs such as the Atom, Reverse Atom, the Danny, or Rapala Magnums, will undeniably bring that bigger fish out of the crowd. With creel limits on bluefish, it's the way to go. Face it, an umbrella rig sporting four or five hooks, will bring fish in four or five at a time. They'll be smaller and your fishing day will be shortened considerably. Eel imitations are equally good lures, and large lures employing a single hook can allow for more releases if you want to release your fish.
Where to go? We've already mentioned the Race, which provides summer-long fishing and also hosts a large party and charter boat fleet on a daily basis. Further west, charter boats are fewer, and the action is spread out. Eaton's Neck and waters between it and Buoy 11B are favorite summertime trolling spots. The waters outside Port Jefferson Harbor hold good summertime bluefish populations. Mid-Sound waters can also host large schools of bluefish in the depths throughout the summer.
Come September, blues become restless and are on the move, seeking bait schools all along the Connecticut and Long Island shores. Large schools of small baitfish lead to dynamite surface action, and if baitfish and blues are bigger, live and chunked bunker can bring many a trophy into boat and shore. JULY is the start of steady bluefish action, but it will last well into November. When nothing else works this summer, rig the wire and try some trolling.
dwa
