Montauk Sportfishing Report 7/6/09 - The Hull Truth

CaptGeneKelly · 07-06-2009, 05:21 AM

7/6/09
Well, the fluke season is open again and there are plenty of fluke around, just not very many that you can eat, unless you cheat. I don’t know that the couple of boats that had the special permit and were able to fish through the closure gained very much. The weather for the most part was crappy. The boats that didn’t have the permit fished for porgies, seabass or diamond jigged bass and blues and didn’t carry as well as the permitted boats, but they didn’t have to pay $3/pound for every fluke their fares caught.
Striped bass fishing is great, but like the fluke, there are an awful lot of shorts around. But, you can work your way through or around them and come up with a limit without much problem. Some boats have started with the live porgies, but the most effective way of catching the bass is still dragging the wire.
Offshore the shark fishing is pretty steady with enough bluesharks to provide action and more threshers showing up every day. Makos are still fairly scarce though. There was one shark taken early in the week that has to be considered a super exotic. A 170 something pound porbeagle was taken from east of the Butterfish Hole. Those things are a cold water shark and back in the days when they weren’t an unusual catch they were usually caught in May when the mackerel came through.
Next weekend (Saturday & Sunday) is the MBCA Charity shark tournament at Star Island. Stop by and buy a tee shirt or something. The proceeds go to scholarships for local kids.
The Butterfish Hole has more whales in it than I’ve seen in twenty or so years. Saturday on the East Bank I could look around and see six to eight at any time doing something practically all day long. After I drifted past 14600 or so I was out of them. There are some bluefin there as well, but they doesn’t seem to be any real concentration. I heard of a couple of 40-50 pound fish being taken.
If you would like to get these reports sent to you directly, drop me a line at captaingene@montauksportfishing.com and I’ll put you on the list.
Capt Gene Kelly - Montauk Sportfishing