Long Island – New York Fishing Report – August 13, 2020

• Cobia caught at Robert Moses.
• An enormous population of cownose rays, who usually stay below south Jersey, has infested the south shore.
• Shark fishing is extremely productive.
• Solid yellowfin bite.
• Fluking is red hot along the south shore.
• Snapper populations have exploded. There are also lots of cocktail blues around, about 5-8 pounds.
• Porgy and sea bass are very productive targets.
• Spanish Mackerel holding strong, bonito moving in.
• The BAIT situation is ridiculous. It looks like a ticking time bomb for the false albacore.
• Schoolie striper bite is hit or miss. Bigger bass coming at night and early morning.

Fishing Report For Long Island

Paul at River Bay Outfitters in Baldwin made it back up to the smallmouth grounds this week for some good fishing. Brown and orange were the hot colors that brought 30 fish to his hands. Once he figured that out, he shared the info with his friends who also proceeded to clean up. It wasn’t easy fishing, and the key to staying bent was moving around a lot and changing up flies.

Paul got on his boat this week and headed to the back bays. There he found lots of small bluefish and snappers feeding on tons of tiny bait. He’ll bring a fly rod back for those guys.

There were also lots of fluke in the bays.

The storm made freshwater fishing kind of weird on the island. A handful of parks closed, and nobody was answering phones at the Connetquot. That problem should be waning, if it’s not already gone.

Paul knows of a few guys who have capitalized on the sharky waters. They’re putting out chunks and reeling in sharks pretty consistently. The main catch is sandbar sharks.

Kathy from Freeport Bait & Tackle says there’s lots of fluke around, the blue claw crabs are everywhere, and the amount of rays around is ridiculous.

In the inlet and channels, people are hooking into rays. Chris Lambrou, Chris Daum and Ben Garelick were fishing the west side of Jones Inlet in 30 feet of water on the outgoing tide the other day. They were looking for a shark using mackerel as bait, but hooked into a 50 pound cow nose ray instead.

Carol Caruso was fluking underneath the meadowbrook bridge with a hi-lo green/pink bait rig with spearing, when a bullnose ray took her bait.

Joe Mazza was fishing in Long Creek with Gulp shrimp in new penny color 2 days ago. He bagged a 7.5 pound fluke back there.

Brett from Northrop fished the same day with a spinner rig at the top of the incoming. He had one 25 inch fluke, 2 19-inchers and about 20 shorts. Brett also had a slot-sized bass 2 days before that on a surface plug at high tide. He caught these fish in the channel east of Jones inlet.

Randy Rosa has been sailing on the Laura Lee a few times in the past couple months. This week he caught two nice fluke on chartreuse Gulp grubs. One was 23 inches and 5 pounds.

Capt Lou Fleet in Freeport has been putting their clients on the fluke big time this week. Fishing was slow after the crazy winds we had, but it has been picking back up. They’ve been heading to the ocean wrecks for their fluke fishing. Gulp has been the hot bait. Black Sea bass have also been biting real well this week, along with red hake. 

Captain Stu Paterson of Northport Charters sends a good word from his neck of the woods: solid fluking to 4 pounds, a good bite of keeper sea bass, and porgies to 3 pounds kept the kiddos busy on the water this week. On top of that, there’s a ton of bunker and other bait all over the area. It’s looking like a good week ahead!

The Celtic Quest Fishing Fleet of Port Jefferson has had an extremely productive past few days with a variety of species keeping the rods bent. It looks like the porgies were biting nonstop on clams. Bluefish stole a few hooks, and some of them came home for dinner.

The Black Sea bass fishing typically slows a bit during the hot August weather, but they’re still getting some quality biscuits out there.

A night trip produced constantly bent rods for a family party. They were able to take home a bunch of blues and slot-sized stripers. Even the day bite has produced a few schoolie bass.

Phil at Cow Harbor Bait & Tackle in Northport says there are still some nice bass around, mostly out in the triangle. Guys are getting them jigging now, as opposed to chunking. There are so many dogfish in the area now, and they’ll typically scoop up your chunk before the bass can get to it.

With those bass are some nice blues. You’ll likely find a bunch anywhere from 5-8 pounds in the mix. The James Joseph will start doing jigging trips this week or next week because of the method’s success as of late.

The snapper population is booming. Any dock you visit, you’re gonna find snappers splashing all over the surface. There is spearing everywhere, but not much (if any) peanut bunker. Usually there’s peanuts here by now.

Fluking is still pretty iffy. You can probably catch them in deeper water, but you’re probably going to have to fish outside the box. Maybe put a sea robin or bunker fillet/strip on your jig. Perhaps a live snapper. With the bigger baits around now, these methods could result in a larger fish.

The porgy fishing is still going strong. It should be good until October when they become sparse and hard to find.

Dave Flanagan of “North Island Fly” is still on the schoolie bite, but hasn’t seen anything over 27 inches this week. The big blues have also been evading him. He caught a break yesterday while out with Vinny in the Greenport area though. They hammered a bunch of gator blues and a lot of striped bass up to 29 inches.

Bill at Chasing Tails Bait and Tackle in Oakdale says the ocean reefs and wrecks are holding some really solid fish. Big Sea Bass and jumbo Fluke are hanging out in the deep. Drop a heavy bucktail tipped with a 6 inch Gulp! grub, or a butterfly jig, down to them and it’s lights out. The bay is holding some great fish still, in the more hidden and tucked away spots. Small bucktails tipped with a Fat Cow strip or a Gulp! will do the trick. Striper action is still just resident schoolies. They’re eating swim shads, bucktails, and soft plastics. Blues are around from the snapper to cocktail size, and are a load of fun on light tackle. The town docks are loaded with snapper, kingfish, blowfish, and blue claw crab. Pelagics have started to show face finally. The spanish mackerel are in heavy, along with some frigate tuna and other little awesome fish. Albies should be here any day now.  

Laura Lee from Captree reports a crazy mixed bag this week. I’ll just give you a summary for the past two days:

Porgies came up by the hundreds, and sea bass put forth a good showing as well. Fluking was productive, with about 100 being caught per trip to 5 pounds. Red hake, mackerel, sea robins, and bluefish hit the decks in good numbers. Cunner, cod, silver eels, whiting and weakfish were had. One triggerfish was caught on Tuesday, along with three spinner sharks. Last but not least, 4 conger eels were caught, and it wouldn’t be a fishing trip without some dogfish as well.

And that’s the gist. It’s always a productive day aboard the Laura Lee.

Jeff at Whitewater Outfitters in Hampton Bays says fluke fishing is really good in the bay. There is a lot of fish, but it is a grind to find keepers.

Striped bass fishing is also pretty excellent in the bay. There’s a good number of fish in back, but same as the fluke, not a lot of big ones.

Jeff heard of a few bonito caught from the rocks recently. No word on the albies yet though. Jeff expects that to turn on in the next few weeks. I think we’re talking about it now because everything else has been pretty early this year. Spanish mackerel are still around for the catching.

The amount of bait in the bay is ridiculous.

Offshore, there is a good yellowfin bite somewhat inshore. You can find them about 40 miles out. Bluefin have been caught as close as ten miles from shore.

The ocean fluking has been tough lately, but every now and again someone has a banner day out there.

Kenny at Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor says Shinnecock inlet is the fishiest place he’s heard of this week. Chris Tracy has been fishing there and getting into some good Spanish mackerel and bluefish bites. 

There hasn’t been much word from Montauk, the peconics, or the open beach.

In fact, the peconics actually reached 82 degrees this week. Kenny says another couple degrees warmer, and the bay won’t have much oxygen in it.

Rick from Harbor Marina of East Hampton reports:

Snappers and Cocktail Blues have made a strong showing this week on some of the local harbors. Top of the incoming tide at 3 Mile Harbor has fish on the surface with some nice mini blitzes taking place. Striped Bass are being caught from Gardiners Island out to Block Island. Tide and time of day are important.

Sea Bass and Porgies are prevalent on most pieces of structure where the water is a little cooler. A larger body of short fluke have moved into the rips north and east of Montauk with the occasional keeper in the mix. CIA and Cartwright are holding big fluke, fishing a full tide is required.

The offshore scene remains strong with a mix of Big Eyes and Yellowfin at the edge and Bluefin from the Butterfish Hole to the Ranger.

Montauk’s Viking Fleet got into some banner fishing this week. On Monday the catch consisted of porgies and quality sea bass. Christian Alessandro from Smithtown took the pool with a 3.5 pound sea bass.

Fluke, sea bass and porgies filled the bags the next day. Kristina Kerr of Deer Park took the pool with a 6.75 pound fluke.

Captain Dave was on the starship which produced great porgy fishing by the lighthouse. Seabass came from closer to Block Island. Eight keeper fluke to 8 pounds hit the decks as well. The edible pool winner was a 9 pound fluke.

John Delaney from Patchogue did work on the Tuesday afternoon trip, taking first and second place in the pool with a 4.8 and 4.5 pound fluke. Porgies and sea bass once again provided a mixed bag.

The solid fishing continued yesterday, and presumably today as it has been consistently good lately.

The whale watching trip this week spotted 4 humpbacks and 2 minkes within 30 minutes of passing the Montauk lighthouse.

Chris from Double D Charters in Montauk says shark fishing is insane right now. They’re getting multiple fish a trip, with lots of hammerheads.

Bottom fishing is great, with plenty of big Black Sea bass to be caught. There are also lots of triggerfish biting.

Striper fishing has its bad days and really good days. There aren’t as many over-slot fish being caught. They went from a dozen on average to about 3 big bass a trip.

Bluefish have been on the small size, and make phenomenal Black Sea bass bait. For jumbos use 3-inch strips.

Long Island Fishing Forecast

Quick big-ups to Brian Spreckels for catching a nice cobia from Robert Moses. 

The best part about fishing is that there’s always something new to learn. None of us will ever know everything. It’s a fascinating lifestyle.

I see so much, living on the beach. This week I saw something I haven’t experienced before. I’ll break it down for you.

I had two days with clients this week when we absolutely hammered stripers from shore. There was a ton of seaweed the first morning, but it disappeared for a couple hours, during which the striper bite was extremely productive. Later in the day, the weeds came back in. The next day, the water was gin clear and we sight fished for bass, catching twenty in a couple hours. That night, red water moved into the surf. I couldn’t catch any more bass.

The next day, the red water was still there and there were no bass whatsoever. I could still see through the water, but there were no stripers swimming. Countless hickory shad blitzed beyond the red water. I became worried that this might be a red tide, or rust tide, something like that.

I filled a jar with some of the red-looking water and brought it to SOMAS scientist Chris Paparo, aka @FishGuyPhotos, who analyzed the sample.

The water turned out to be completely clean, so the red tide theory was out. 

My initial thought, that bay anchovies had inundated the coast and turned the water red, seemed to be the best bet. Perhaps the stripers had just changed up their diet. Now they were eating mouthfuls of this rain bait at a time, so it was nearly impossible to target them.

Catching/not catching fish is not the important part of this story, although I learned what the possible reason for that was. 

I was more interested about water quality and ecosystem health. 

Chris taught me a lot about these algae blooms that cause rust tide, and it rang a bell. Last year there was a tremendous scallop die-off in the peconics. It was catastrophic. I thought it was due to rust tide, and it may have partly been, but Chris informed me that high water temps were the primary culprit.

So while speaking to Kenny today, I thought about all this info. I don’t know the science behind oxygen and water temperature, but it seems like we could be heading for another catastrophe, with temps already reaching 82 degrees.

So, I think I’m forecasting fish kills ahead. Maybe not this week, but this year. I’ve got a bad feeling about it.

Another couple interesting things I took away from my convo with Chris:

1. There were some reports of big sheepshead fish being caught along the south shore these past couple weeks. You don’t hear about them being caught on LI too often; you may have never even heard of the fish. It’s like a big porgy, also reminiscent of a blackfish, with convict stripes: a beautiful fish. People catch them on crabs I believe, like they do blackfish. These fish love shellfish, oysters in particular. Chris informed me that since LI’s oyster population was so greatly diminished, the fish disappeared with them. Now it seems we’re seeing a bit of a resurgence in both species.
2. The cownose rays that are infesting our coastal waters are not exactly native to NY. They would usually only go as far north as southern New Jersey, but now we’re inundated with them. Chris got some drone footage this week of hundreds and hundreds of cownose rays in Shinnecock Bay. He seemed worried about this, as these rays are known for stirring up the bottom and killing off eelgrass.

It’s always exciting to hear about exotic/tropical catches in our waters. I’m always hoping that I’m going to catch something foreign. It would be a catch of a lifetime. 

But is the higher frequency of exotic catches indicative of something much more sinister?

The trend of warming waters could mean more exotic catches, but it might also mean the death of our native shellfish populations. The ecosystems at large will be in peril. And, as with sheepshead, once the forage is gone, will our native fish even return?

Heck if I know. I’m just thinking out loud. 

Expect more exotic catches this week. And more rays. Sheesh.

Stay fishy my friends.