Long Island Fishing Report - December 19, 2019

 

Poor weather cancelled most party boat trips this week. When the boats got out, porgies and sea bass were the common denominator. As is typical on these trips, a variety of species was caught.

Small striped bass remain in the Nassau surf.

Heavy rains produced swift water on the local rivers, which had an awesome effect on the trout.
Freshwater fishing got pretty hot after the warm rains, albeit difficult.

BY LAND
One of my favorite fishing shows on YouTube is “Fish Your Way.” Formerly known as “Fish Jones Beach,” Jerry does all the same fishing I like to do. He’s very innovative as well, regularly thinking/fishing outside the box. He’s a regular salt, and goes hard on the sweetwater in the off season. The saltwater season has not yet ended for him, though. He’s been doing a number on the herring this month. You can see in his most recent video which shows him targeting them with a homemade Sabiki on his fly rod. His method was extremely efficient, and he even bagged a few stripers to boot! We on the East End are starved for stripers now, so it’s great to see somebody on the island is still catching them. Keep up the great work Jerry!

Mark Sedotti joined me at one of my local lakes to target largemouth this past Saturday. Mark expected the warm rains to heat up the freshwater bodies, igniting a bigmouth bite. We mainly fished with fly rods for the first hour and a half. Not a single tap was had in that time. Mark wanted to try one more approach before we left; he pulled out his spinning rod and threw a pretty big chartreuse swimmer resembling a Rapala. That induced the first hit of the day, a solid little bass. We decided to stick it out. Ten minutes later, I located a 14-inch crappie, and then it didn’t stop from there. Mark and I must have caught thirty crappie each, all 13 to 14.5 inches. He bagged a few more largemouth, and I threw some smaller flies to target the large bluegills.

My friend Tony Camargo is a big fan of wintertime trout. He started the weekend with a silvery, sea-run rainbow trout saturated with spearing. The fish was 22 inches long and weighed four pounds. That fish will feed his family on Christmas Day. I met Tony at another tidal creek on Sunday and witnessed him hook into another whopper of a rainbow, but this one broke him off after what seemed like a 10-minute fight on ultralight tackle. Can’t win ‘em all!

I fished the Connetquot River State Park a few times this week. It becomes addicting, especially when the striper withdrawals are in full effect. Stocked trout make for pretty easy fishing, for the most part, but they also provide a great opportunity to hone your skills should you ever wish to pursue the wild variety.

I’ve come to love streamer fishing, and I had a very productive week using them. The biggest fish I hooked this week, though, came on a size 16 perdigon nymph. The fish ran upstream for the first 30 seconds, jumping repeatedly underneath low-hanging trees. It nearly leaped onto the bank three times before it reared its head and sprinted downstream. I tried to put the brakes on, but there was no stopping this fish. For the next minute, it ran from side to side, farther and farther away from me. When I was almost into my backing, I made the decision to chase it, and then it broke off. It would probably have been one of those mid-high 20 inchers they stock. I had about a dozen other fish that day.

I came back a few days later and couldn’t buy a bite on the nymphs. I spent the day honing my streamer-swinging skills. I probably caught about 15 fish again with this new method. They were mostly small brook trout, but I did have a couple 14- to 17-inch brookies. I had a few rainbows as well that were much heftier.

I visited the park a third time right after the rains. The water was a dark red, and very high. It was the first time I’ve seen it anything less than crystal clear. I was nervous it would negatively affect the fishing, but I quickly realized that I was in for my best trout session ever. I had around thirty fish that day, all while swinging streamers. The brook trout were aggressive, hanging out in the middle of the river and hitting the fly on a quick jerk. The rainbows were much sparser, but I located a handful of big ones hiding deep in small corners of stillwater. I drew them out with a correctly swung streamer and had some fun fighting these bigger fish. I used these pretty flies I tied to emulate salmon streamers and did very well. The Royal Coachman also bagged me a couple big ones.

I’ve been hitting my white perch spots regularly, with no luck. I haven’t found any holdover bass yet either. Nor have I heard of many white perch being caught around the island.
I hit another local pond yesterday to see if I could get some largemouth or stocked trout. I tried for a while with no luck. Once I began to zone out and fish my lure slowly on the bottom, I had a solid little brown trout hit. It was probably 15 inches, and I released it.

If you’re itching’ to do some fishing’, have a look at the NYS DEC website to find a list of waterbodies that were stocked with trout this year. There are many stocked ponds on the island, and only three prohibit trout fishing after October 15. It’s a great way to keep the rod bent throughout the winter months.
Carp is another cold-water option, although you’ll probably want to stick with bait like corn, worms or boilies if you’re going to target them. They don’t take too kindly to the fly in these colder months. The ones I do get on the fly in the winter are generally in moving water, and they tend to be very small. That’s good enough for me though.

BY SEA
Captree’s Laura Lee cancelled most of their trips this past week. They are looking forward to returning to the seas this weekend. They did make it offshore on Friday, though, with 25 fishermen on deck. The anglers reeled up 303 big sea bass, keeping a full boat limit to 5.56 pounds. They also caught 23 porgies, 12 red hake, 3 silver eels to 39 inches, 3 bluefish, 1 cunner, three weakfish and 34 cape sharks to 7.3 pounds.

Montauk’s Viking Fleet was hindered heavily this week by poor weather. When they could sail, the bottom fishing was slow. Big swells combined with the full moon tides only made it tougher. On Friday, Steven Trigari from Glen Oaks took the pool with a 9-pound cod.
The Starship sailed Monday for another slow day near Block Island. After moving farther east, anglers managed to crank up some porgies, sea bass, and small cod. Ling and whiting were available nearly every drop.
The prevailing strong winds and poor weather have prevented the fleet from doing much more fishing than that this week.
There is some nicer weather forecasted for this weekend, but it’s going to be COLD, so dress warm if you’re going fishing.

Nassau Shops
Robert from LI Outdoorsman in Rockville Centre says the bass are still biting in the surf. They’re small, and the bite is dwindling daily, but there’s still a chance to bag some stripes.
There are herring at the piers, and Sabiki rigs are doing the trick for them.
Robert Sr. cooked up some haddock last night that he caught while on one of the party boats. He said it was delicious, and his son recommends hopping aboard a boat for a day trip to fill the cooler. You’ll be able to bring home a bunch of fresh white meat and potentially fill your freezer for the winter. Sea bass is the main target these days, and will probably remain so until the season closes on December 31. Cod, ling and haddock are prized, regularly seen bycatch on these boats. Robert Jr. recommend the Super Hawk out of Point Lookout.
If you’re done fishing, bring your reels into the shop to be serviced.

Kathy from Freeport Bait & Tackle tells me that one of her customers did an overnight trip on the Superhawk recently. They ran to the Coimbra to target sea bass. They limited out on them, and were able to harvest some porgies and ling as well.

The piers from Long Beach to Jones Beach are going to be your best bets for catching herring these days.

The shop will be limiting its hours moving forward, but they’ll always be taking calls. If you need some gear during the winter, call ahead and they’d be happy to meet you at the shop.

Long Island Fishing Forecast
Winds from the north have knocked the seas flat, and that weather pattern should continue into the weekend. It will be a good time to climb aboard one of the party boats and get some fresh meat.

Anglers in Nassau County just might be able to catch a surf striper on Christmas this year. Get out there if you can! Don’t forget, though, that the season is officially closed, and the striped bass population is in trouble. Take great care of these fish.

This is my last report of the year, but you can keep up to date with my personal fishing reports this winter by following/subscribing to my Instagram and YouTube pages, “South Fork Salt.” I’ll be fishing all winter, targeting everything I mentioned in the report, including walleye, pickerel and yellow perch.

Thank you all for reading, sharing, commenting upon, and appreciating the info I’ve reported this year. I’ve been able to learn so much in such a short time, and I am excited to continue with these reports in the spring.

A huge thanks to all who contributed to the reports as well! I couldn’t have done it without you! Thanks for the pictures, the stories and the tips!

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, tight lines, and all the best!