Big Porgies, Small Black Sea Bass in Long Island Sound

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Blackfish (tautog) are good eating but the recreational season closed yesterday. You'll have another chance to catch them again in the fall when the blackfish season reopens on October 10.

Of course, there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Bluefish remain abundant and there are some big porgies out there too! 

Below is an excerpt from this week's DEEP Marine Fishing Report. You'll find the full report attached as a PDF.

BLUEFISH remains hot and heavy throughout LIS and fishing will only get better as autumn approaches!

STRIPED BASS night time fishery is the norm due to all of the marauding bluefish during the day. Live bait is the key for success but you have get by bluefish in order to score on a linesider. Also, bouncing three-way bucktail jigs on the bottom is another option instead of wasting those precious lively baits being chopped in half by bluefish. Stripers and chopper spots include the reefs off Watch Hill, Ram Island Reef, Thames River, Plum Gut, Pigeon Rip, Little Gull Island, outer Bartlett Reef, Black Point including Niantic Bay, the “humps” south of Hatchett Reef, lower Connecticut River, Long Sand Shoal, Cornfield Point, Southwest Reef including outer SW Reef, Six Mile Reef, the reefs off Madison, Guilford, and Branford, Falkner Island area, upper New Haven Harbor, Charles Island area, lower Housatonic River, buoys 18 and 20 off Stratford Point, Stratford Shoal/Middle Ground, Penfield Reef, the reefs around the Norwalk Islands, and Cable and Anchor Reef. Don’t forget about hitting our coastal state parks for excellent shore-based fishing!

SNAPPER BLUEFISH fishing remains good to excellent in the tidal rivers. Snappers range in size as small as 4 inches to over 8 inches in length. Snappers are a blast to catch on light freshwater spinning gear and even on a fly rod! Snappers will wreck your gear so use flies you really don’t care about trashing. Also, spin casting small willow leaf lures or kastmasters work well.

SUMMER FLOUNDER (fluke) fishing is still hit or miss. Deep water (100+ ft) drifting across tight contour gradients (drop offs) and river channels have been yielding good catches but locating these flatties is more than half the battle!

SCUP (porgy) fishing remains good to excellent with some slammer porgies being reported on a weekly basis! 15 to 17 inch scup are being caught on the local reefs. Just use a three way bottom rig with a small scup hook baited with a squid strip or clam will do the trick for theses hard fighting bruisers!

BLACK SEA BASS fishing is good to excellent but there are a lot of throwbacks (sublegal fish) being reported. When fishing deep water try to reel in slowly to reduce the swim bladder from over expanding for survival purposes on the sublegal throwbacks!

This week there has been no reports on LITTLE TUNNY or ATLANTIC BONITO but these speedsters can appear anywhere at any time especially during this time of year!

BLUE CLAW CRABBING is near peak along the coast! 

Surface water temperatures in Long Island Sound (LIS) are in the low 70’s°F. Check out the web sites listed below for more detailed water temperatures and marine boating conditions and see page 5 for some recent water quality information. 

http://www.mysound.uconn.edu/stationstat.html http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/sat_data/?nothumbs=1 http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/ http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/AN/330.html 

For Current Connecticut Recreational Fishing Regulations: Anglers should consult the 2012 Connecticut Anglers Guide which is now available at most Town Clerks Offices, DEEP offices and at tackle stores selling fishing licenses. Current regulations, electronic versions of the Angler’s Guide and additional information can all be accessed on the DEEP website.