Montaukm 8/30/05

During the week the offshore fishing was restricted a bit by the weather, but as the weekend approached, the winds moderated and the boats were able to get out to the vicinity of fifty fathoms, and they caught tuna. The tuna fishing is a bit frustrating though because of a lack of consistency. As one charter captain put it "one day a hero, and the next a zero" And, you can get back to the dock only to find out that you were only 6-7 miles away from a bonanza.

The shark fishing though is very consistent, if not spectacular. Big and medium bluesharks and small makos, with occasional nice sized ones. Just about every boat does the same, three or four sharks, and not very far out, fifteen to twenty miles max.

Inshore the fluke fishing continues to wind down. I remember years ago Labor Day weekend was the peak of the big fluke season. One trip stands out in my mind. We had spent the day slamming the Cartwright bluefish and on the way in made one drift for fluke. In that one drift we had four fluke of 10-1/2, 10, 9-1/2 and 7 pounds. Now most of the big fish are caught in the spring. You can still get occasional doormats now, but you have to have a lot of patience. The FLYING CLOUD is out of the fluke business for the rest of the year and now it’s all porgies all the time. LAZYBONES would probably like to switch over to diamond jigging except that it doesn’t seem like it would be very consistent yet.

Striped bass fishing seems to be slowly improving, plus there are good amounts of bluefish around at times, much to the dismay of those using the live porgies. [via email report]