Fishing Report: 9/24/06

[Pete_G]

Fall continues with mixed results for fisherman. Some have struggled, others have found fall fishing at its best. Surface temps off Newport in the boat have fallen beneath 65 degrees for the first time. The temp guage has been swinging between 64.1 and 65 on most days.

Albies and bonito have been widely scattered with isolated areas of better action. Judging by reports I’ve heard some albies did continue up the Bay in addition to running up the Sakonnet as they usually do. It’s easy to fall into the trap of not looking in the Bay or River for albies, I had one day where I covered most of the RI Coast in the boat with almost nothing to show for it only to later learn just a few miles in the Sakonnet River the albies and bonito were raging most of the morning. Bass to 25 pounds were mixed in too. A few kayak fisherman were having a field day on all 3 species on small topwater plugs and also the flyrod and that action continued for several days. This has been one of the best seasons for bonito we have seen in a very long time. Bonito have been consistent since the first week of August.

Traditional spots like the West Wall have been touch and go for the falsies and bones with nothing spectacular to report. Same as the bass fishing, those who are covering ground to find better quantities of fish are the ones doing the catching. Block Island has had albies tearing around the mouth of the harbor on some days.

On to the bass fishing… A good friend of mine caught his first 50 pound bass on tube and worm off Jamestown along with several other bass over 40 pounds about a week ago. The fish were fairly close to shore at the time. Congrats Dan. Jim Sylvester pulled a couple big bass over 30 pounds this past week from the surf too as he always does. FU Jim.

From shore we’ve been covering a lot of ground trying to stay on the hot spots for stripers. Driving East or West 30+ miles hasn’t been uncommon. Canal, South County, whatever it takes. Basically we take where we previously found the fish, look at the tides and wind, as well as what time we have available to fish and make an educated guess as to where to go. The waters off Westport and surrounding towns have been very good on some days from both boat and shore. There’s been payoff on most trips with the biggest bass falling between 20 and 30 pounds but there’s also been a few near skunkings.

Newport has been shaky and mostly giving up fish to those who go every day and really pound the rocks. Bass up to 25 pounds have been caught lately, but nothing predictable. Here today and gone tomorrow. Another friend of mine (also named Dan) landed a 21 pound bass yesterday (Saturday 9/23) on a surface swimmer around 11am. Decent daytime fishing especially on cloudy days can somewhat be expected from this point in the season on. I really like fishing big Pencil Poppers so the stretch between now and the end of the year is one of my favorites for catching big fish, during the day, on top.

Be safe out there and enjoy the fall!