Montauk Sportfishing Report 6/20/2010

[captgenekelly]

6/20/10

The Star Island Tournament was held over the weekend and a lot of sharks were caught -
too many bluesharks. What we call festivals of them, with most boats having them
swarming around the boat all day. But, there were some exotics culled out. The results are
as follows;
Heaviest overall - AFISHIONADO - 335 lbs. thresher
1st place mako - CAROL LIBBY - 241 lbs
2nd place mako - PANCHO - 236 lbs
3rd place mako - CHANGE ORDER -224 lbs
1st place other species - AFISHIONADO - 335 lbs. thresher
2nd place other species - HALFWAY THERE - 330 lbs thresher
3rd place other species - WE GO - 325 lbs thresher

If you are going to enter a shark tournament, it would be to your advantage to know the
rules. One guy didn’t and brought in a white shark, which is a no-no. The shark ladies
who are there to study the sharks called a tall guy in green who came by to enforce the
law. I understand the fine to be around $25,000.

Last week there was talk that the Concerned Citizens of Montauk were going to supply
circle hooks for the tournament but that never happened. I thought the shark huggers
weren’t going to protest either, but on Saturday they were out on the island at the entrance
to Star Island. No plane dragging a banner though.

The Marine Basin has it’s tournament next Friday and Saturday and they will definitely
be giving out free hooks. I already glommed a pack. They’ve got a lot of them, but I don’t
know how many they are giving out to each boat, but with the number of blues out there
it probably won’t be enough.

It seems like the bluefins are here in force, and in a lot of different places, from the West
Bank east to the Fairway Buoy, and they are being cooperative. Getting to the spot early
seems to be key. The BLUEFIN IV was able to keep two bluefins and released another
early in the week and it was all over by 7:30. But I can’t tell you where or Michael’ll have
to kill me. He’s got a couple of dates available in the next week or so if you want to find
out where he caught them.

Inshore the bass fishing is good enough with a limit on a half day trip about standard,
with most fish legal sized up to around twenty pounds or so. Diamond jigging at the
Elbow is still going on, but trolling with wire produces at all the regular spots.

Fluke fishing is a bit of a struggle, and not just because of the 21” size limit. Even the
shorts are getting scarce. The charter boats on an all day trip would usually spend half the
trip on bass and then switch to fluke, but more of them are switching to porgies instead.
That is great with some real monsters around. Diamond jiggers at the Elbow have been
catching them along with the stripers.