FIshing report - Montauk and Block Island

[Glenn]

Fished Montauk on Sunday the 8th with my bro in law (based in Niantic, CT) and father in law. Fluke was the target. We had live mummies and squid for bait. As we cleared the rips at Montauk point (pretty snarly) we rounded the corner and headed up the coast about 2 miles. There were blues working everywhere and we jigged up a couple (4-6 pounders) but lost them at the boat (wanted them for bait). Headed to our drift spot in 55-65ft of water and had a fish on within 10 minutes...19 inch keeper. We drifted this area for a couple of hours and put 5 keepers in the box with about a dozen throwbacks. We then headed out to the Frisbees and boated one nice flattie (5 pounds) and four 2-3 pound sea bass on a diamond jig with some squid. Also caught a couple more short flatties. Headed back into our drift zone in shore and moved up and down the coast a bit. We never went more than 15 minutes without action even in a poor drift (wind against tide). When the dust settled, we had 12 keeper flatties and also had a ball casting surface poppers to the blues as they started blasting bait on the surface all around us. Cut bluefish and fluke belly were the best baits by far. No one color was any better than the other...white with pink, plain white and bright green worked. Small rubber squids or hair jigs worked equally as well.

Monday we stayed close to Niantic due to fog and had a ball at the Millstone Power plant casting surface poppers to the blues (3-8 pound range). Great fun.

Wednesday we decided to chart a new course and fish Block for the first time on Vinny's Parker. We had fished with a charter at Block a few years ago and new it was a great spot but did not know exactly where to fish. We started at SW ledge fishing the larger rock piles outside of the rip. Marked some nice bait and fish but no hits. None of the charters stayed out there so we moved inside to a nice rip just off the coast. One boat was trolling a tight circle so I figured he was on the fish. Sure enough, as soon as we went past him we could see they were hooked up. We trolled down sea through the building rip and had two nice blues on right away. One on a chute and one on an umbrella. Next pass another blue and a 34 inch Striper. Blues were 30-33 inches. Next pass my father in law hangs a nice 39 inch Striper (very fat). We missed some other bites as well. Rip grew to about 3-4 ft but fishable only down sea. Next pass I missed two nice strikes then boated a 31 incher. We stayed put for about another 30 minutes but could not get bit and the waves were nasty. We pointed her back to Niantic and dealt with thick fog from the Race all the way back to Niantic Bay. Thursday was FOGGY so we bagged it. It sucks when the wind is NIL but the FOG is too thick to go out.

Glad we were able to get on the fish...Block Island is a COOL spot as is Montauk. Great Fluke fishing.

Glenn

[gottaway]

Hey Glenn,
Welcome to the North, glad you had fun.
You were fishing in some of the best spots, but why didn't you try for some night eeling at the race?

[Glenn]

This is my bro in laws second year with the boat and he is not up to a "stealth" mission and I do not know the waters well enough to want to press him on it...I'm sure he'll work his way up to it. I think he will try night eeling at Bartletts first as that rip is not as severe and it's close to home...

Any tips you'd like to share I will certainly pass onto him since I am sure he'd like to try it...just has not figured out the Race yet. We've caught a few fish in there trolling but I think we've got the fluke pretty well set off Montauk. We hit them same time, same place last year and really smoked em'. That is a beautiful place to fish...water is so clear and bottom is perfect for flukin'

If I were staying another week, I'd talk him into the night fishing! Tomorrow, we are off to Quabbin for some Smallmouth then I head back to Virginia. Our fishing is really taking off right now so I'm anxious to get back to it!

Tight lines

Glenn