Connecticut Fishing Report
Matt Stone at Black Hall Outfitters in Westbrook told me that the bunker have been showing up a bit better, but not in the numbers they’re used to seeing. Striper fishing has still been good despite the lack of bunker, but it’s been different. The fish remain concentrated out over deep structure. Usually, at this time of year, we are in full-blown shallow fishing mode with plenty of bass; but the guys fishing on the reefs and deeper structure have been smoking tons of fish and reporting great topwater bites, as well. Along with topwaters, spoons, diamond jigs, large soft plastics and live baits continue to get the job done. Sea bass season is still closed, but fluke fishing has been great in 40 feet of water or deeper using all of the standard presentations. Porgy fishing is also improving quite a bit and will continue to be good throughout the season.
Heather from the Black Hawk in Niantic reported: “Our private charter on Wednesday night found the blues and had a nice mix of bass as well! Friday’s After Work Special trip showed more great fishing, with a good number of slot-sized fish coming over the rails all night long. Overall, the porgy fishing showed some improvement from last week. The highlight of the week was our family trip on Saturday afternoon, when we found a load of porgies and the kids were reeling them in all day. A few sea bass were in the mix as well. Sunday and Monday showed much improvement, with loads of jumbo porgies coming over the rails! Our sunset cruise on Saturday night was wonderful. As always, these trips are part of our Black Hawk and the Community Program, and we thank everyone who joins us so we can help the local community. We’re sailing 7 days a week now, so be sure to check our calendar online and grab a ticket for your trip! We still have a few private charter dates available, so contact the office to get your date on the calendar.”
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Captain Chris Oliver of Keepin’ It Reel Sportfishing in New London has been spending some time targeting the big striped bass around Block Island, as they wait for the offshore bite to really pop off. The striped bass fishing is about as steady as ever out there, in the usual areas and on the usual offerings. He continues to hunt the midshore tuna grounds whenever he can get out there. The life that you would expect out there is showing up just in time, but the tuna are still very scattered. The Northeast canyons have been the most productive to bluefin, Yellowfin, and Bigeye Tuna. Hopefully the tuna will show up midshore any day!
Middlebank Sportfishing out of Bridgeport reported: “It’s July and in the Western Long Island Sound, that means mixed bag bottom fishing! Mixed in with our porgies, we’re seeing more sea bass, weakfish, stripers, and a few fluke. We even had a stargazer! The porgy schools are spread out, which forces us to hop around to keep a bite going. We are fishing both shallow and deep drops. We have concluded our fluke trips for the season due to declining keeper numbers. There’s been no shortage of action though, with plenty of “shorts” up to 18 inches. Visit our website, middlebanksportfishing.com for info and scheduling.”
Max at Fisherman’s World in Norwalk reports that the biggest change they heard about in the shop this week was of the arrival of big bluefish. Most of the action has been to the west, off the weather buoy and around Captain’s Island. The schools of big blues have been out deep in 80 to 100 feet of water, and not really on structure or bunker schools, but finning on the surface. Topwater lures like poppers have worked well, as have umbrella rigs and bunker spoons. Any big blues they’ve heard about from the deep-water reefs have been mixed in with stripers, and they haven’t overrun them yet. Speaking of those stripers on deep structure, they are still hanging around locally and fishing is excellent. The chunk bite has now taken over as the best way to target these fish. That is not to say they won’t take an artificial lure, but bunker chunks have become the predominant method for most customers. The bass bite isn’t confined to the deeper water, as reports of bass inside the islands are common. As water temperatures continue to climb, fishing around low light and overnight periods is generally the best bet. Fluke fishing has been solid over the last couple of weeks with some nice-sized doormats coming from local waters. Anglers fishing with squid, bucktails and Gulp, or spoons have been taking fish south of the islands and Middle Passage, as well as off Sherwood Island and can 26. They’ve also heard of more weakfish caught this week as well, with the bulk of them off of Port Jeff. Scup fishing continues to improve too, as more reports come in from customers catching keepers locally. Shore reports have been good as well with anglers scoring from Sherwood Islands and other areas of hard structure on sand worms.
Anthony Charnetski at Game On Lures reported: “The bass bite has remained steady and seems to be improving by the day. The recent heat wave finally warmed up the Sound to the mid to high 60s, which is on track for early July. The shallow bite has improved quite a bit, and the bass are starting to move into their summer haunts; however, the most reliable bite continues to be out on the deeper “midshore” reefs. Large soft plastics on jigheads, or 3-way rigging live bait or DuraTech Eels and bucktails have been working great for the guys out on the deeper reefs. The 6-inch and 8-inch X-Walk have also been working great when the fish are pushing bait to the top. The fish on the inshore side have been much more willing to bite at night and low-light hours; 13-inch DuraTech eels on jigheads, X-Walks, Albie Snax and bucktails have proved effective for the shallow bite. The bunker have still been pretty thin, but we did see a significant arrival of chub mackerel over the past week. Butterfish, sand eels and silversides seem to be the main forage right now. Fluke fishing is picking up, and some quality fish are being caught on the regular. Bucktails, fluke spoons, and hi-lo rigs in 40 to 60 feet has been the ticket in the Eastern Sound. Scup fishing has been lights out with the warmer weather—EXO Jigs and live bait, like sand worms, have been the best producers. The summer blackfish season also opened July 1, so that is always an option to add some meat to the cooler. Blackfish can be found relatively shallow during the summer season; anywhere from 10 to 30 feet is a good starting point.”
Captain Mike Roy at Reel Cast Charters told me that the striper fishing remains very good with some impressive numbers of big fish around. Artificials are still working well, but the live bait bite has been furious. For artificial lures, they did well again this week with 9-inch Slug-Go’s and 7-inch Fin-S Fish on jigheads. They also saw some good topwater action for larger fish on spooks like the Shimano X-walk. As far as live bait goes, securing bunker can be tough, but it’s well worth the effort if you can find them. They saw some more very large bluefish in the mix this week with gators to 15 pounds.
Connecticut Fishing Forecast
Fishing throughout Connecticut has fired up just in time for the holiday weekend with better porgy fishing, chub mackerel blitzes, and big bass and bluefish widespread. Bunker remains relatively scarce in the rivers and estuaries, but they can still be found around the deeper reefs mid-Sound, where they are firing up some great striped bass feeds. The shallow water bass bite hasn’t been as consistent as years past, especially in the lower CT River, but there are plenty of bass to be had from Stamford to Stonington on the deeper reefs/rips. Bluefishing has been up and down, and your odds increase greatly if you can locate big schools of bait, but there are enough around to keep things interesting—especially in the Western Sound, where a nice push of gators moved in recently.
Similar to Rhode Island, fluke fishing seems to have hit an early summer peak, with solid reports from east to west. 40 to 60 feet of water seems to be the ticket in most cases, and the usual Gulp/bucktail presentations in pink, white, and chartreuse are working well. The sea bass season is on a breather until July 8th, but scup fishing is in full summer mode, with good reports from both shore and boat anglers.
Don’t forget about the freshwater bite either; as we close in on extremely hot summer temperatures, there are still great opportunities to find some big largemouth and smallmouth, with the largemouth taking refuge in the weeds and the smallmouth looking for cooler, deeper water.