Everything seemed delayed by about three weeks in 2017, due in part to water temperatures. In the spring the water was cool and the striped bass took a while to arrive. And in the fall, the water was warm; still 63 degrees in November — so the tautog, squid and cod seasons were delayed.
Here are some highs and lows of the 2017 fishing season.

Epic false albacore bite

The false albacore run was the best in years in 2017. False Albacore are part of the tuna family and are commonly called ‘albies’ in the northeast. They were deep into upper Narragansett Bay all the way to Barrington Beach and around Conimicut Light. False albacore have not been seen this far up the Bay in 25 years. The most intense contact was around Pt. Judith both toward Westerly and north to Narragansett Beach. Many believe it was the volume of peanut bunker (immature Atlantic menhaden) that caused the epic false albacore run.

Striped bass Cape Cod Canal bite best in years

“Fishing for striped bass at the Cape Cod Cannel has been very, very good. Many of my customers are fishing there and landing bass from shore in the 42 to 47 inch range using pencil poppers, soft plastics, mackerel and pogies,” said John Littlefield of Archie’s Bait, Riverside, this past August.

In Narragansett and Mt. Hope Bay, many said the striped bass season was half as good as 2016. Anglers did catch large fish in the bay, just not as many. The striped bass season for anglers fishing from shore, along the southern coastal shore from Narragansett to Watch Hill was good. Noted shore angler and author Steve McKenna said in November, “Fishing from shore for striped bass has been great. Since September I have landed about 300 striped bass. One or two were in the 30 pound range, many in the twenties and teens.”

Large fish (but fewer fish) were caught at Block Island this year. Capt. Andy Dangelo of Maridee II Charters said this fall, “We had a lot of big fish on the south side of the Island this week. Charter boats had five or six fish over 50 pounds. We caught our big fish trolling umbrella rigs.”

Fair summer flounder and black sea bass season

Another surprise was that we had a fair to poor summer flounder and black sea bass bite in the bay off Newport and along the coast to the Sakonnet River in Massachusetts. This was offset with a good but spotty summer flounder bite in the area of the wind farm at Block Island with a very strong black sea bass bite there. The bite was fair to good along the southern coastal shore.

Where’s the bite?

Freshwater ice fishing has been very good. Largemouth bass, pickerel, perch and trout are biting. And this week (before the rain), that included most ponds and lakes in our region which now may have weakened with warm weather and rain. However, the cold weather is expected to return Sunday. Use caution this week even if ponds and lakes freeze again as old ice is often weaker than new ice.

Dave Henault of Ocean State Tackle, Providence said, “The ice was solid, 9 to 12 in many ponds like Meshanticut Pond, Cranston and Only Pond, Lincoln Woods. Anglers at Carbuncle Pond (in Greene) were experiencing a good largemouth bass bite and a good perch bite at Indian Lake, South Kingstown. And if interested in catching pike, you might want to try Chapman Pond in Westerly as it is managed for pike.”

Angler/Capt. BJ Silvia said, “I was all set up to catch pike with larger hooks and shiners last week when I hooked up a six pound largemouth bass. The bite was fairly aggressive.” Capt. BJ (of Flippin Out Charters) was fishing on a pond in the East Bay. “I have a tip that has works well, I weave a button onto my line so it slides, when finding the optimum depth a foot or so off the bottom I position the button on the line where I can see it, and then drop the line to the button mark each time I go down. This way I know I am always just off the bottom.” Littlefield said, “We have been selling a ton of shiners. Customers are fishing.” Northeast Trading Company in North Attleboro reported selling a lot of shiners (the bait of choice) to ice anglers as well.

Cod fishing. The Island Current III out of Snug Harbor, Rhode Island had a private party fishing trip last week which yielded a nice score of market cod. Capt. Frank Blount of the Frances Fleet said, “The weather has been down right miserable. Temperatures were in the negatives with heavy freezing spray and snow early last week which did not make for a fun time to go fishing. When we did get out the fish were on the picky side. We would do five drifts and catch but as soon as you anchored the bite would die. High hook for the week boxed eight keeper cod. Many fish were in the upper teens with the largest pool fish between 20 and 30 pounds.”

Captain Dave Monti has been fishing and shellfishing for over 40 years. He holds a captain’s master license and a charter fishing license. Visit Captain Dave’s No Fluke website at noflukefishing.com or email him with your fishing news and photos at dmontifish@verizon.net.