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PESCA MAYA TRIP DETAILS UNDER THE “NEWS” TAB!

ALL NEW SMITH/ACTION OPTICS ANGLING SUNGLASSES HAVE ARRIVED!!
Eric C. Johnson
Westport Outfitters, LLC
609 Riverside Ave.
Westport, CT
06880
www.westportoutfitters.com
www.allseasonsmarineworks.com
p-203.341.9490
f-203.341.9423
ejohnson@westportoutfitters.com
TAKE THE FAMILY FISHING


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Wow…what a strange week. A ton of personal reports from here at the shop as well as from customers all weekend long and into the week. The summary, some are ready to hang the poles up for the season while others went home sore. What does this mean for you; time to get on out there folks, for the majority of the reports are really starting to heat up. Of course over the weekend was the WICC Tourney, so there was a good amount of pressure, but that did not seem to bother the fish at all. The winning fish came from the west as is customary and was just shy of 16 lbs. Congrats to all the winners! Many participants were once again disappointed, for all of their efforts only produced the wrong species of fish. Despite being all leadered up, a good friend of mine landed a 42 lb bass off of Stamford in the middle of the day on Saturday. Seems sort of ironic based on the theme of the report last week which was be careful about relying solely on the textbook when determining your tactics. Of course the textbook would say that catching this bass in August, with a black steal leader in the middle of the day would be virtually impossible, well, guess again. The water temps were still dropping before this heat wave, so we will see what happens with this impending front as well. Speaking of fronts, no doubt you have all heard the news about Hurricane Earl ripping up the coast. Hard to say what the exact track will be, but it looks like the most of us will be spared, with Montauk feeling the brunt of it (sorry Dave). Hurricane force winds will only emanate approximately 60-80 miles outside of the center of the eye. Given that, we will definitely get some wind and some surge, but hopefully it won’t screw up the tremendous amount of bait that is currently in our local waters. Whatever the case, if you are out on the water, be sure to keep an eye to the sky…

As mentioned previously, the striper fishing continues to improve day by day. In fact, our own Kurt Daniello bailed a nice 25 lb fish from the surf on Wednesday on a Northbar plug. Kurt gets it done regardless of what the fishing forecast is and he would be the first to admit that taking this fish from shore is a great sign (see recent catches).

To kick things off this week we had Scott Maxwell and crew land and release a nice 12lb blue on some sweet light tackle rods we hooked him up with a few weeks back (see recent catches).

Sage N. was back at it after a few weeks of lake fishing and his record did not skip a beat. Fishing both Saturday and Sunday during the outgoing tide, he had about 6 bass each day over 30 inches doing a bit of trolling as well as tossing top water plugs, with some smaller fish mixed in along with a few big blues. Largest bass was 38 inches followed by a 36 inch bass respectively. All fish were taken in water between 3 and 15 feet (see recent catches).

Don Rossi and crew wrote in summarizing his weekend on the water fishing the tourney as better than good with a lot of big blues to the boat. One point of interest, while everyone else was running around looking for fresh bunker that was in shortage, he loaded up with mackerel and he was glad he did. The blues under his vessel wanted nothing to do with the bunker and instead were only hitting the chunked mackerel. Once again his girlfriend Kerri Kulesza brought more fish to the rail than Don…(see recent catches).

Recent shop customers Ethan, Benny and mother Anna stopped in for some guidance about fishing in and around Penfield Reef. We set them up with a few poppers and they proceeded to have many catches over the course of two days this weekend. Their most impressive catch was a monster Sea Robin on a snapper popper! Great job boys (& mom too!)(see recent catches)

The Micinilio Brothers reported in that they too had some luck over the weekend, but for their fishing appetites, it was too slow. On Saturday they fished from Westport to Stamford and caught fish right off the bat at Cockenoe. They continued west and caught a bunch of blues on some of the rocky points off Stamford on the outgoing tide. In total they had 25 bass up to 30" & 5 blues up to 31". Sunday they stayed close to home in the Housey, with only 4 small bass and 5 small blues, dodging what they said was an extraordinary amount of boat traffic on the river.

Farther down in the sound we heard from Eric G. who fishing outside of Penfield Reef on Tuesday with bass up to 37 inches again in the middle of the day, mostly using bunker heads until they lost the tide.

As a side note, the larger blues all week long have not been acting like larger blues. With a ton of surface bait on the water, you would expect to see more of those traditional blitzes, crashing the small bait…this has not been the case. Therefore, be careful, try and get those lures down a bit and do a lot more blind casting, you will like the results.

The Micinilio Brothers checked back in Wednesday evening after a long afternoon on the water. They fished the Fairfield area hard, marking a ton of bait, but nothing really pushing it. They even ventured out into deeper water and dropped some live bunker for minimal results. I can’t believe I just used the word minimal and Micinilio in the same paragraph. Well that is why they call it fishing…not to be outdone they did manage to scrape up a nice 36 inch bass and a big blue near Sunken Island, so all was not in vain. Way to keep the determination and focus boys (see recent catches).

The bones and albies, although not elusive, are definitely being a bit finicky. Our own Captain Mike Platt on two separate charters this past week was on top of them, but there was not even enough time to dump a cast. Pat Ashe emailed in a report that he spotted them off of Chimon, while Sage N. also had them in the islands as well. These are all accomplished fisherman and no doubt these fish were not mistaken. My only suggestion folks is just to have a rod rigged and ready to go with a Sea Rock Jig and some flouro, that way you will be prepared. Although the impending Earl may be seen as a hindrance, it may just push these fish and more bait farther up and into the sound, but I will let you know if that comes true on Sunday.

The snapper fishing remains strong up and down the coastline so once this front pushes through on Friday, it is supposed to be a great weekend, so get on out there. This weekend also marks the unofficial close to the 2010 Summer Season and I reiterate "unofficial.” In fact, I know a handful of anglers that don’t even start fishing until this holiday passes, so don’t hang up the rods just yet; there is still a ton of great fishing!