First, the excellent news. Saturday was a magnificent day to fish off of Montauk. I drove out to my boat in the morning and met my friend, Capt. Jan, from Moriches. In contrast to Thursday’s wind fest, Saturday was a very light northerly breeze with calm seas.
Plan A was to drift the rips at the Point for stripers and watch for birds for surface action. We headed for the Elbow and the fleet. We drifted a couple of times without a touch, even from a stray sea bass or porgy. The rest of the fleet saw similar non-action and the tide was fading.
Based on my last couple of trips, sea bass and porgies have largely left the local grounds and even SW Ledge, and I figured the bass wouldn’t turn on until late in the afternoon. So I headed to the sea bass grounds south of Block. Great move. When we got there, a couple of party boats were still on the scene. I decided to use only a hammered diamond jig because I knew some cod were around and I also was sick of catching short sea bass.
As soon as my jig hit bottom, I hooked up with a nice sea bass. I had non-stop action until we limited out on big sea bass. We also picked up several dinner plate porgies. I caught two cod, including a lovely 23 inch keeper. Capt. Jan chose to use bait for a while, which yielded more smaller fish. My jig was definitely the way to go.
We released plenty of smaller keepers, knowing we’d soon get large sea bass. And this action was all during slack tide.
Around 3 pm, I headed over to SW Ledge to see if we could jig up some stripers. The Ledge was completely dead - not even sea bass.
Then it was was to the rips at Montauk. Still dead there for jigging, though we did pull up a sea robin.
Next up, we hit the South Side and cruises along the beach until we spotted some birds. The blitzes became more frequent as the sun started to lower. The problem was trying to figure out what the bass would eat. I tried epoxy resin jigs, poppers, Deadly Dicks, diamond jigs, and finally unweighted Albie Snaxx which turned the trick.
A slow twitch of the unweighted Albie Snaxx got the bass to bite. As the sun went down, after missing a couple of busting bass that knocked the soft plastic out of the water, I hooked up solid with a big bass. In the middle of a great fight, the line suddenly went slack. I retrieved the line, only to see that my knot had slipped. How ridiculous. Still, what a terrific fishing day!!
Now, bad news story. On Thursday, I left my boat at 6 pm. I keep it at the Montauk Lake Club. I was rushing to clean the boat and my wife was waiting in the car. I wound up leaving 3 spinning rods and 2 conventionals in my rocket launcher in the cockpit. The conventionals were 2 nice small Fin Nor reels. The spinning reels were 2 Spinfishers and a Battle. I was going to at least put the Fin Nors in the cabin but didn’t realize that I hadn’t until I was off the boat.
On Friday, I was reading a post on Facebook from an Offshore Canyons group that I’m a member of. Someone had posted that overnight, thieves had hit boats at Gurney’s (Montauk Yacht Club), Montauk Anglers’ Club (Gone Fishing Marina), and Montauk Lake Club, my marina. I called my dockmaster Friday afternoon. He told me he had been on my boat that day fixing lines after a wind shift and he didn’t see any rods. That was bad - I was one of the victims.
I filed a police report and East Hampton PD is working hard on the case. Some of the sporties were hit hard. One guy had 2 80s, 4 50s, and some electrics stolen. At least 10 boats were hit. At least one boat had crew sleeping aboard when the boat was hit. The crimes were committed by water. The thieves stole a small boat and travelled to the marinas over the water, apparently pulling up next to their victims and coming aboard. There’s an empty slip next to my boat, so I assume they pulled into that slip, jumped on my boat, grabbed the five rods, and left in about 10 seconds. Nothing else was taken - like gaffs, a tuna bag, etc. The police found the small boat abandoned in what was described to me as a spot known to “locals.” While my loss isn’t that large, I’m sure the sporties lost many thousands of dollars of gear each.
This seems like a solvable crime. I sure hope it is. I’ve learned my lesson, but it’s sure another sad day in our country when even our cherished havens like Montauk are Infiltrated by brazen scum like this. To jump on a big time sportie and steal gear is pretty ballsy given that professional crew may be aboard and it’s highly likely that they have firearms to protect themselves and the owner and guests.
Plan A was to drift the rips at the Point for stripers and watch for birds for surface action. We headed for the Elbow and the fleet. We drifted a couple of times without a touch, even from a stray sea bass or porgy. The rest of the fleet saw similar non-action and the tide was fading.
Based on my last couple of trips, sea bass and porgies have largely left the local grounds and even SW Ledge, and I figured the bass wouldn’t turn on until late in the afternoon. So I headed to the sea bass grounds south of Block. Great move. When we got there, a couple of party boats were still on the scene. I decided to use only a hammered diamond jig because I knew some cod were around and I also was sick of catching short sea bass.
As soon as my jig hit bottom, I hooked up with a nice sea bass. I had non-stop action until we limited out on big sea bass. We also picked up several dinner plate porgies. I caught two cod, including a lovely 23 inch keeper. Capt. Jan chose to use bait for a while, which yielded more smaller fish. My jig was definitely the way to go.
We released plenty of smaller keepers, knowing we’d soon get large sea bass. And this action was all during slack tide.
Around 3 pm, I headed over to SW Ledge to see if we could jig up some stripers. The Ledge was completely dead - not even sea bass.
Then it was was to the rips at Montauk. Still dead there for jigging, though we did pull up a sea robin.
Next up, we hit the South Side and cruises along the beach until we spotted some birds. The blitzes became more frequent as the sun started to lower. The problem was trying to figure out what the bass would eat. I tried epoxy resin jigs, poppers, Deadly Dicks, diamond jigs, and finally unweighted Albie Snaxx which turned the trick.
A slow twitch of the unweighted Albie Snaxx got the bass to bite. As the sun went down, after missing a couple of busting bass that knocked the soft plastic out of the water, I hooked up solid with a big bass. In the middle of a great fight, the line suddenly went slack. I retrieved the line, only to see that my knot had slipped. How ridiculous. Still, what a terrific fishing day!!
Now, bad news story. On Thursday, I left my boat at 6 pm. I keep it at the Montauk Lake Club. I was rushing to clean the boat and my wife was waiting in the car. I wound up leaving 3 spinning rods and 2 conventionals in my rocket launcher in the cockpit. The conventionals were 2 nice small Fin Nor reels. The spinning reels were 2 Spinfishers and a Battle. I was going to at least put the Fin Nors in the cabin but didn’t realize that I hadn’t until I was off the boat.
On Friday, I was reading a post on Facebook from an Offshore Canyons group that I’m a member of. Someone had posted that overnight, thieves had hit boats at Gurney’s (Montauk Yacht Club), Montauk Anglers’ Club (Gone Fishing Marina), and Montauk Lake Club, my marina. I called my dockmaster Friday afternoon. He told me he had been on my boat that day fixing lines after a wind shift and he didn’t see any rods. That was bad - I was one of the victims.
I filed a police report and East Hampton PD is working hard on the case. Some of the sporties were hit hard. One guy had 2 80s, 4 50s, and some electrics stolen. At least 10 boats were hit. At least one boat had crew sleeping aboard when the boat was hit. The crimes were committed by water. The thieves stole a small boat and travelled to the marinas over the water, apparently pulling up next to their victims and coming aboard. There’s an empty slip next to my boat, so I assume they pulled into that slip, jumped on my boat, grabbed the five rods, and left in about 10 seconds. Nothing else was taken - like gaffs, a tuna bag, etc. The police found the small boat abandoned in what was described to me as a spot known to “locals.” While my loss isn’t that large, I’m sure the sporties lost many thousands of dollars of gear each.
This seems like a solvable crime. I sure hope it is. I’ve learned my lesson, but it’s sure another sad day in our country when even our cherished havens like Montauk are Infiltrated by brazen scum like this. To jump on a big time sportie and steal gear is pretty ballsy given that professional crew may be aboard and it’s highly likely that they have firearms to protect themselves and the owner and guests.
