With the state-wide opener for striped bass still over a week away, all the ingredients for a fast start to the 2012 season are already in place. The bait’s everywhere, including big schools of bunker spread from Jamaica Bay all the way east to the Peconic. In most places, the stripers have already found them. Anglers who’ve made it out flounder fishing in the opening days of the season found local holes holding some good-size flatfish for the most part, and the overall action should increase as we move through April and into May. There’s no doubt about it now, the 2012 season is here and it’s starting fast, if you haven’t unpacked your gear yet and made it to the local tackle shop — now is definitely the time.
East End
Cod fishing has slowed significantly south of Block Island over the past two weeks. More porgies and sea bass moved onto the grounds, making it almost impossible for the remaining keeper-size cod to find a piece of cut bait before the more aggressive species get to it. Unfortunately, the porgy season won’t open until May 24 (June 8 for headboats) and the sea bass doesn’t start until June 13 this year. Hopefully there will be a bright-side to this temporary inconvenience. There’s a decent chance the significant time period between when the fish arrived this year and when their fishing seasons open could produce a “bumper crop” of offspring for both species. Either way, there are still a few open fisheries worth checking out in the meantime. Flounder season has started, and although they will probably still be a little sluggish, I’m sure there’s a good amount of them already set-up inside Montauk Harbor. The good thing is, it shouldn’t take more than some bank mussels, lead, sandworms and a few small hooks to catch yourself dinner. If you’re looking for a more “hardcore” angling option before the bass take up residence in the rips around the Lighthouse, the Viking Fleet has added an extra 25-hour tilefish trip to their offshore schedule due to popular demand. The tile fishing was great on the first two trips of the season, and I’m interested to see how this trip works out. The boat leaves the dock tomorrow morning at 9am. Although it’s last minute, there was still a few spots left on the trip last time I checked the Viking’s website, so if you’re interested in trying deepwater-canyon fishing — now’s your chance.
South Shore
A ton of life arrived early along Long Island’s south shore this season – months early in some cases. The baitfish started showing up in mid-winter, but few were around to notice or care about the misplaced forage. However, it didn’t take long for the word to spread once the bass came inshore and started working the bait near at top of the water column. Reports flooded in form everywhere, including from drooling anglers aboard flights making their decent into LaGuardia and JFK. This year, it’s not a matter of “if” things will break-open in time for April 15th, it’s a matter of “if” you can handle the wait.
North Shore
With just a couple days left until the striped bass season gets going, there hasn’t been much attention paid to the Long Island Sound. Water temperatures in the sound are still lagging behind the south shore, although the gap is close to disappearing. The other big factor is that there’s still a much bigger concentration of life in the New York Bight. However, for those who love springtime bass fishing on the north shore (and I definitely include myself in that group), I wouldn’t be surprised if there were already schoolies in the back bays of all the north shore harbors. It won’t be long until they’re slashing away at small topwater plugs and chartreuse Clouser minnows in the evenings, I’m sure some ambitious anglers have already found them.
Metro New York
There’s a lot of life stirring in the waters around New York City, especially for the first days of April. Jamaica Bay is already filling with its enormous springtime biomass. The flounder are biting, there’s already “cocktail” bluefish buzzing around and the striped bass have balled-up the first schools of bunker. More stripers are moving through the city via the lower Hudson by the day, and many have already begun their migration upriver. For those fishing north of the George Washington Bridge, where the striped bass season is already open — at one fish per angler per day over 18 inches — the action has been steadily improving with the slowly-warming water temperatures. I’d still recommend fishing at the end of the outgoing tide, and setting up just down-current of a tidal stream emptying into the main river. Especially on sunny afternoons, the water dumping out of the tributaries can be significantly warmer than the main current, encouraging the still-sluggish linesiders to feed.
Upstate
Weather conditions settled back to a seasonal norm upstate, with temperatures settling in the low 50s during the day and retreating to a few degrees blow the freezing-mark on most nights, making those 70- and 80-degree days of late March seem like a distant memory. Up in Mayfield, the springtime fisheries are beginning to come to life. “I’ve had a few people in today,” was the word from Bill at Jim’s Bait & Tackle. Most people have either been out looking for freshly-stocked trout or hitting the smaller lakes for panfish, and Bill told me “there’s been a lot of people fishing Sargent’s Pond.” There hasn’t been many people out on Lake Sacandaga since the end of the hardwater season, and it could be because of the low water level on the lake. Bill said it could be tough to launch a larger boat on the lake at the moment, and could even affect this year’s class of walleye as their typical spawning-streams are running much lower than normal. Hopefully we’ll get few soaking rains over the next few weeks to fill-up the local streams and creeks.
Up in Kent, in the Lake Ontario Region, I talked to Sharon from Narby’s Superette & Tackle. “It’s slowed down some,” Sharon said, “but there’s fish there.” A lot of the action is shifting out of the creeks and streams in back into Lake Ontario. “There’s been some salmon caught around the mouth and off the piers.” The charter fleet has also begun the 2012 season, as many boats went back into the water on April Fool’s Day. Many of Lake Ontario’s other fisheries are also beginning to get active, and Sharon mentioned almost a dozen species being caught from shore including pike, smallmouth, panfish and bullhead.
Best Bets
There’s no doubt it’s a good time of year to be an angler in New York, and describing the current angling situation as a “sea change” isn’t even straying that far from the literal truth. Thousands of fish are making their springtime migrations and taking-up seasonal residence in New York’s coastal waters. Angling options are expanding dramatically across the state, both fresh and saltwater, and this transition-phase will only accelerate in the weeks to come. Get out flounder fishing this weekend if you can, or spend some time scouting at low tide for opening day of striped bass season — now less than two-weeks away. The freshwater trout season is open, and consulting the OTW Trout Stocking Update page will let you know which of your local ponds is freshly stocked. There a lot of new angling opportunities out there this weekend, and it’s definitely worthwhile spending a few hours on the water this weekend getting reacquainted — tight lines.