THE SUMMER-like temperatures gave the flounder fishing a boost and we are seeing more keeper stripers being caught, but this weekend it looks as if we are back to weather more conducive to spring.
Codfishing is still holding up off the East End, but now we are also seeing more and more blackfish, sea bass and a few snowshoe flounder.
Last week we forgot to mention Eddie the bartender and the rest of the boys from the Corner Bar in Sag Harbor who help contribute to a load of cod taken on the Capt. Mark out of Montauk.
Flounder to three pounds were taken in both the Shinnecock and Quogue Canals. There was also some flounder action into Moriches Bay. There was some decent action on flounder in Great South Bay for anglers fishing the channels and the Babylon Cut.
For boats out at Freeport and Point Lookout, the best action was on the bottom for togs and ling. Some of the charter and party boats in these areas are doing offshore wreck specials and finding a mix of cod, pollock, ling and sea bass.
Jamaica Bay continues to offer up winter flounder, but you have to work for your catch. Lots of chumming will get you a bunch to two pounds along with a striper or two and maybe a bluefish that have showed in the bay.
Party boats from Sheepshead Bay are working both sides of the harbor. Raritan Bay is starting to show signs of life and they’ve even take a few along the Coney Island Flats. There were keeper bass taken in Great Kills Harbor by anglers using herring.
Herring are around in healthy numbers and being caught from Staten Island to Jamaica Bay and up into the Narrows. Stripers feeding on the herring are coming down the Hudson.
The action in the Sound was much the same with decent floundering in Eastchester Bay and fish to 2.5 pounds being caught. Striper fishing was fairly good for so early in season, with action in Manhasset Bay and Hempstead Harbor producing some keepers.
Further east, there were flounder and bass in Northport and Lloyd Harbors.
*
The recent catch-and-release of a 385-pound lemon shark on a fly has the world fishing community buzzing and leads off the International Game Fish Associations highlights of documented record fish catches. Dr. Martin Arostegui from Coral Gables, Fla., may have caught the heaviest fish ever documented on fly while fishing with charter Capt. Ralph Delph of Key West.
Dr. Arostegui battled the big fish for over an hour and as he muscled the fish next to the boat the toothy shark attacked the hull of the 29-foot Contender.
“When it opened its mouth, I said to myself this shark could eat half of me in one bite,” joked the diminutive doctor.
Another pending record catch on a fly, also in the Florida Keys, took place in Islamorada by Carl Navarre, Jr., of New York City with a 15-pound, 1-oz. bonefish. Captain Tim Klein was his guide and Navarre used a 20-pound tippet and it took him eight minutes to boat the bonefish. The current men’s 20-pound tippet is 14-pound., 5-oz. caught April 19, 2002, also in Islamorada. The fish was also released.
