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fishing report north fork long island

Photo by Andrew Derr (Long Island on the Fly)

long island fishing report north fork

When we spoke with Captain Bob Ceglowski on Monday morning, his Captain Bob (out of Mattituck Inlet) was anchored for porgies, culling keepers and picking some nice sea bass. At times during the day, there is also a good bite of blues ranging from cocktails to slammers. A nice surprise in recent weeks has been the catch of big stripers (to 47 pounds) on jigs.

Bill Czech at Jamesport Bait and Tackle in Mattituck said beaches were very quiet with August water temperatures near peak (now 75 F on the Sound). If you wanted more than a few porgies or cocktail blues, you might try fishing around 4 a.m. Bass are on the outside reefs off Hortons Point in 70 feet of water, while the Fishers Island Race and Plum Gut were reported to be quiet in the last couple of days, both on morning flood and afternoon ebb.

Brendan at the New Suffolk Fishing Station liked the action on small blues off Jessups with birds hovering above the schools. Local snapper sizes are better now, and scup still run to 14 inches despite the numbers of throwbacks. It’s encouraging to see summer-run weakfish in 16-18 inch sizes among the porgies, and there are some kingfish (northern whiting) in catches as well.

Farther west at the Rocky Point Fishing Stop Stan Hentschel told us there were still some five- to seven-pound fluke off Mount Sinai, but, in general, not much along the beaches. Stripers have moved into the deepest areas of the Sound, 100 feet or so. The highlight of the week was a large bass chopped up by a very large shark off one of the South Shore beaches, with swimmers in the same area. Best bet is that the hungry critter was a mako, since four of them were caught recently within sight of Moriches Inlet.

Our final report came from Scott at East End Bait and Tackle in Hampton Bays, who notes the best fluke bite is still in Shinnecock Bay; it’s strong east of the Ponquogue Bridge and inside the inlet. Try live snappers and long strip baits for the largest fish. (A 10-pounder was reported Saturday in back of the inlet.) Triggerfish are on inlet structure with a few sea bass on the reef. Best offshore fishing is for sharks with both makos and threshers in the mix, and there already a few bigeyes and yellowfin tuna, along with mahi (dorado or dolphin [fish]), near the Hudson canyon.

 

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