So after that last big storm the flat ones appear to have vamoosed, much to my chagrin. Normally I switch over to mixed bottom fishing, local to JI. No shortage of bottom to try in my area - what we appear to have right now is an acute shortage of fish. I sailed solo on Monday, on a scouting expedition. Went far to the east of JI to my "secret" trigger fish drop - for absolutely nothing more than a few undersized biscuits. So that didn't work.
Moved to the Hempstead Reef - a few drops there resulted in a truly monstrous porgy - the largest I've ever seen, in fact. Had to be well over 4lbs at 17.5", and a couple of triggers, and that was it.
So I ran to the McAllister - for literally not a touch - on three different drops. Enough of this nonsense. Best to call my buddy Capt. Mike, of the Captain's Table charter boat, out of Greenport - to see how's he's doing. That resulted in a quite positive report on the Sound "deep-drop" Biscuits (as in 90-130' of water!), with some very respectable king-kong-sized blue heads mixed in with the usual medium-to-larges. Good enough for me! As we were just the two of us, Mike also asked if our other buddy, Frankie/NYSharpie, of the Howard Beach-based Teresa V was up for such a trip. Hah! Does Dolly Pardon sleep on her back? Eh, rhetorical question.
So we set the trip for Sat (yesterday), and were lucky enough to have absolutely PERFECT conditions for drifting the deep Sound rock piles - of which Mike has a goodly collection, in his boat's chart plotter. Now this type of fishing is nothing like what we do here on our relatively shallow reefs. Nope, up in the Sound you look for a quarter-phase moon tide and as little wind as possible - and if you are lucky enough to have these conditions, you can fish with "just" a 10oz sinker! O.K., so this trip we did use 8's for a period of time - but that is both rare and lovely, if you can get such conditions.
Cap. Mike fishes specific tides for this type of drifting - generally preferring the slower-running incoming, and so he set a "boat arrival time" of a very civilized 07:30 for shoving off. MUCH appreciated, Mike!
Arriving at the boat, Mike had her big Yanmar diesel up and purring in no time:
And off we went for the approx. one hour ride to our first drop of the day. Passed thru a totally calm Plum Gut:
and out into the open Sound at high cruise:
In what seemed like no time at all Mike throttled back, circled around and scoped out our first drop. A-hah! Marks a'plenty! He put her in the proper uptide location and joined us in cockpit for a quick bait-up:
Hey Mike, how about a quick wave to your fans:
Oy veh, looks like a retired traffic cop!
Frankie came ready for tog season (O.K., I know, he's wearing white post-Labor Day. Perfectly acceptable for early togging). But there was no need for such outerwear - as the temp rapidly climbed from the morning's mid-50's to over 80-deg. Whew, off came the rubber gear and long pants, on went the Summer-issue shorts and flip-flops.
Anyway, it took exactly 30 seconds for my "Flushing Korean squid"-baited hi-lo rig to get assaulted, resulting in a solid 3lb keeper - and his little buddy. Frankie had one a bit smaller - but still making the 15" minimum size. Nice!
And so it went thru the morning - run up, put 'em in and swing away! Fish on! Mike had made the right choice of drops, right off the bat, as repeated drifts over it for the entire trip had us filling our boat limit of 21 fish before 12:00 noon. Now THAT'S how a professional captain makes it happen. No running around, no "let's try this area, let's try that area." Just have a high-quality drop right off the bat, and work it properly. Bingo! Bango! Bongo! Done!
Mike believes that you can never have too much ice on your catch - and he proves it every time I fish with him. Kudos! :
After the “limit fish” hit the Albin's big fish box Mike gave us the option to continue fishing in C-and-R mode - which was super-nice of him. But Frankie and I voted to head in, clean the fish and square up the boat in time to take a crack at the North Fork afternoon traffic heading back west. That turned out to be a wise choice.
So back to the dock for the requisite pix, the fish cutting and general clean-up - and that was that. Another really great trip to the land of super-clean water and really good fishing. Thanks Mike for the excellent trip, your overall attention to detail, and general good-guy hospitality!
Moved to the Hempstead Reef - a few drops there resulted in a truly monstrous porgy - the largest I've ever seen, in fact. Had to be well over 4lbs at 17.5", and a couple of triggers, and that was it.
So I ran to the McAllister - for literally not a touch - on three different drops. Enough of this nonsense. Best to call my buddy Capt. Mike, of the Captain's Table charter boat, out of Greenport - to see how's he's doing. That resulted in a quite positive report on the Sound "deep-drop" Biscuits (as in 90-130' of water!), with some very respectable king-kong-sized blue heads mixed in with the usual medium-to-larges. Good enough for me! As we were just the two of us, Mike also asked if our other buddy, Frankie/NYSharpie, of the Howard Beach-based Teresa V was up for such a trip. Hah! Does Dolly Pardon sleep on her back? Eh, rhetorical question.
So we set the trip for Sat (yesterday), and were lucky enough to have absolutely PERFECT conditions for drifting the deep Sound rock piles - of which Mike has a goodly collection, in his boat's chart plotter. Now this type of fishing is nothing like what we do here on our relatively shallow reefs. Nope, up in the Sound you look for a quarter-phase moon tide and as little wind as possible - and if you are lucky enough to have these conditions, you can fish with "just" a 10oz sinker! O.K., so this trip we did use 8's for a period of time - but that is both rare and lovely, if you can get such conditions.
Cap. Mike fishes specific tides for this type of drifting - generally preferring the slower-running incoming, and so he set a "boat arrival time" of a very civilized 07:30 for shoving off. MUCH appreciated, Mike!
Arriving at the boat, Mike had her big Yanmar diesel up and purring in no time:
And off we went for the approx. one hour ride to our first drop of the day. Passed thru a totally calm Plum Gut:
and out into the open Sound at high cruise:
In what seemed like no time at all Mike throttled back, circled around and scoped out our first drop. A-hah! Marks a'plenty! He put her in the proper uptide location and joined us in cockpit for a quick bait-up:
Hey Mike, how about a quick wave to your fans:
Oy veh, looks like a retired traffic cop!
Frankie came ready for tog season (O.K., I know, he's wearing white post-Labor Day. Perfectly acceptable for early togging). But there was no need for such outerwear - as the temp rapidly climbed from the morning's mid-50's to over 80-deg. Whew, off came the rubber gear and long pants, on went the Summer-issue shorts and flip-flops.
Anyway, it took exactly 30 seconds for my "Flushing Korean squid"-baited hi-lo rig to get assaulted, resulting in a solid 3lb keeper - and his little buddy. Frankie had one a bit smaller - but still making the 15" minimum size. Nice!
And so it went thru the morning - run up, put 'em in and swing away! Fish on! Mike had made the right choice of drops, right off the bat, as repeated drifts over it for the entire trip had us filling our boat limit of 21 fish before 12:00 noon. Now THAT'S how a professional captain makes it happen. No running around, no "let's try this area, let's try that area." Just have a high-quality drop right off the bat, and work it properly. Bingo! Bango! Bongo! Done!
Mike believes that you can never have too much ice on your catch - and he proves it every time I fish with him. Kudos! :
After the “limit fish” hit the Albin's big fish box Mike gave us the option to continue fishing in C-and-R mode - which was super-nice of him. But Frankie and I voted to head in, clean the fish and square up the boat in time to take a crack at the North Fork afternoon traffic heading back west. That turned out to be a wise choice.
So back to the dock for the requisite pix, the fish cutting and general clean-up - and that was that. Another really great trip to the land of super-clean water and really good fishing. Thanks Mike for the excellent trip, your overall attention to detail, and general good-guy hospitality!
