No Fluke

Where’s the bite

Posted

Summer flounder (fluke) fishing came back pretty good after the storm considering that many feared (including me) that the fish would head out to the continental shelf for winter. Capt. Frank Blount of the Frances Fleet said, “They finally made it out after all the weather Friday and Saturday last week with very good results. The water had cleaned itself up pretty well Friday. They caught fluke to nine pounds and full boat limit of big black sea bass up to five pounds, some slammer scup to nearly three pounds and a handsome number of cod fish to ten pounds.”

I fished with angler Jack Leyden of North Kingstown Sunday and he boated flounder to 22 inches and nearly limited out on black sea bass to 20 inches while fishing in the Newport Bridge area. Manny Macedo of Lucky Bait & Tackle, Warren, said, “Fluke fishing is pretty good with customers catching keeper fluke at Conimicut Light and Jamestown. Three customers said they fished off Newport and caught fluke, bonito, black sea bass and bluefish all in one outing. Another customer said that he landed a bluefish in the mid 30 inch range off Barrington Beach.”

John Littlefield of Archie’s Bait & Tackle, Riverside said, “This weekend customers caught fluke right at Sabin Point using worms and even a chuck of poggie.” However angler Rich Hittinger said, “We fished Thursday afternoon and Friday. The water near Pt. Judith was still brown in places. We tried fluke and caught only shorts. I think the majority of the fluke have moved offshore. We tried tautog with no luck. I think they would not bite because the water is still so dirty from the storm. That should begin to pick up after the water clears. We did find plenty of black sea bass to keep everyone happy. Both days everyone on board had keeper BSB and they went home with fillets. Caught them both south of Point Judith and along the Narragansett shore.”

False albacore fishing remains strong. Angler Adam Maziarz said on the RISAA blog, “I was trolling umbrella rigs at elbow ledge and saw some birds working between Sachuest Point and Sheep’s pen rock. The birds were kind of spread out and fish were breaking. I motored up to them and started throwing a pink epoxy jig into the mix. My buddy Keith was using an olive epoxy jig. We quickly caught about 5 decent sized false albacore. The action slowed after about 30 minutes but we were able to grind out another 5 false albacore and about 5 good sized blues over the next couple hours.”

Striped bass fishing slowed with storms and dirty water last week. Angler Rich Hittinger said, “We didn’t even try stripers this weekend because a couple guys from my marina went to the Island for stripers on last Thursday and did nothing during the day.” “There have been a number of striped bass spotted on fish finders off Newport but they did not seem to want to eat and were not taking what anglers had to offer. The water was still dirty off Newport, this might be the problem as the water was a rust color. However school bass are being caught in some parts of the Bay,” said Littlefield.

The bluefish bite is very good. “Anglers are catching some bluefish from shore at Lavin’s Marina and Sabin Point, East Providence,” said Littlefield. Macedo said, “One customer caught a fish in the lower to mid thirty inch range right off the Barrington Beach.”

Scup and black sea bass are being caught in the Bay, along the coast and offshore in just about any place there is structure and water movement.

Freshwater fishing for largemouth bass has been good. “Customers are catching largemouth bass in the three to five pound range at the Brickyard Pond in Barrington and in Stump Pond along with a variety of other species,” said Littlefield.

Captain Dave Monti has been fishing and shellfishing for over 40 years. He holds a captain’s master license and a charter fishing license. He is a RISAA board member, a member of the RI Party & Charter Boat Association and a member of the RI Marine Fisheries Council. Contact or forward fishing news and photos to Capt. Dave at dmontifish@verizon.net or visit his website at noflukefishing.com.

Dave Monti

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.