Long Island/NYC Fishing Report – September 6th, 2013
The snapper fishing remained excellent in all areas for anglers using spearing fished under a bobber, snapper poppers and small tins. The snappers are 7-8 inches long and continue to gain about an inch per week in size. The larger snappers are pushing baitfish into the flats and against sandbars, making the action hot for anglers casting tins under the birds.
The inshore fluke fishing was best on the incoming tides with the top of the tide being best in the South Shore inlets. The ocean fluke fishing just off the beach has been improving, with the biggest fish being caught on live bait and large strip baits. On the North Shore, the best fluke fishing was from Port Jefferson and east to Orient Point, with bucktails tipped with squid or squid a spearing combinations working accounting for the majority of the fish. Sea robins, lizard fish and the occasional stargazer are mixed in with the fluke. The fluke fishing from the surf was good on bucktails tipped with squid strips.
There are a lot of small sea bass, but fewer large sea bass are being caught on the commonly fished pieces of structure, reefs and wrecks. The best bet for large sea bass was in more than 70 feet of water and on the lesser fished wrecks.
Overall, the stripers are in their summer doldrums, except off Montauk Point, where limits of stripers to 35 pounds were common on boats fishing Great Eastern, Pigeon Rip and high spots and various rips. A few large bluefish were in the mix.
The ocean beaches continued to see a few schoolie-sized bass falling for bucktails and diamond jigs during the early mornings and evenings. Flyrodders also scored on sand eel patterns.
The porgy fishing in the Peconics, off Jessup’s Neck and around Shelter Island continued to be good on clams, worms and small squid strips. The North Shore beaches yielded a good amount of porgies as well as small sea bass on clams and worms.
A few blue, brown and mako sharks were caught on the 20- to 30-fathom wrecks and fingers, but the action in general was slow.
This year there have been enough mahi to make a targeted trip for them worthwhile. Trolling feathers and small plastic lures or tossing chunks at lobster pots scored on dolphin between the rock piles and the Coimbra produced dolphin in the 5-to 10-pound class, with the occasional larger mahi.
The bluefin tuna bite around the Coimbra improved, with the best fishing before the first light on the troll or the jigging schools of tuna marked on a fish finder. A fair number of bigeye tuna around the 200-pound mark, yellowfin to 60 pounds and a few longfin tuna were caught at Hudson Canyon trolling plastics.
Codfish and ling were caught on the wrecks from 20 fathoms and out, with better fishing on the deeper wrecks. A summertime codfish fishery is a good indicator of more cod in the area and is an excellent sign for the winter codfish season.
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