27 May

My charters had been launching a bit earlier to get a jump on the bass in shallow water. The last couple of times out, it had paid off with lots of action on the flats. Not so much this morning… Jerry drove all the way down from New Milford for a 4 am launch. The last of the storms had just rolled through and the wind was still strong, gusting over 15 which made boat controll a challenge. We were the only ones out on the water, including the bass. I was marking a few fish on the side imaging but not nearly the numbers we had seen on previous trips. By 5, we had a few explosions on top water but no hook ups so I decided to head north to where the tide was moving better.

15 minutes later we stopped in an area that had produced for us before. We had hits on pencil poppers on the first 2 casts. We spent the next couple of hours within a mile of that spot. Most of the fish were smaller but the hits on top were spectacular. There was now warning with the tell tale wakes behind the plugs or boils, just explosions. We had fish up to 38″ and put 8 or so in the boat before the bite slowed. Here are a couple of pics:

After that bite died, we headed out to the reefs with eels to see if we could find some better fish. First stop was Long Sand Shoal. The incoming tide was cranking. Our drifts were 3 1/2 MPH and the water was very dirty, making visibilty all but zero. From there, we went east to Hatchett Reef. Things were much better there. The drifts were a bit over 2 and the water was nice and clean. We marked fish as soon as we pulled up in 50 feet of water. The action was OK. No big fish, but we managed a couple more bass and a bluefish before we ran out of time.

I have one more week of charters in the river and I’ll be back on the reefs full time, I’m really looking forward to getting back to Niantic again!