Sports

Fishing Report

Aboard the Peconic Star III on the Fourth of July, Capt. Dave Brennan said that pretty much all the porgies he was seeing were keepers above 11 inches and fishing was as good as expected in late June and early July. It always gets even better later in the season. Brennan is off fluke now, not because summer flounder are unavailable, but because “you tend to run out of fluke customers” about this time of year.

Charlie Caraftis at Charlie’s Mattituck Marina on Mattituck Creek told us about some nice catches to the east along the Long Island Sound. A couple of his marina customers pulled bass of 42 and 45 pounds on successive dawn trips. Alligator blues well over 12 pounds tend to dominate once the sun is up. From Horton’s Point to the Northville Pipeline, anglers find schools of cocktail bluefish. The blues are small enough to leave the scup alone, and porgy anglers are doing nicely on fish from 11 to 15 inches in size. Last week’s biggest porgy was a 20-inch slab! One sea bass of four and one-quarter pounds was weighed at the shop late last week, and there were a few small weakfish in two-to three-pound sizes in the area two weeks ago, but nothing since.

At We Go Fishing in the Port of Egypt, reports described “on fire” action on fluke, mostly sub-legal fish. Plum Gut and Fisher’s Island Race continue to produce stripers by day and night, with the largest bass in the 40s. Scup fishing has been quite good in Little Peconic Bay around Noyac.

John at Jamesport Bait and Tackle liked scup fishing off local beaches with Buoy 5 on the Long Island Sound good for fluke and small blues. School bass and blues were also active early and late off Mattituck Inlet. In the Peconics, the Robins Island Races and Jessups were reliable for scup, with good crabbing already in progress. One catch of note was an early 385-pound mako shark taken 25 miles off Shinnecock Inlet by angler Rob Lechner.

On a final note, Stan Hentschel, who was very busy at the Rocky Point Tackle Stop on July 4, had time to remark that porgies, bass and fluke were all strong in his area to our west.