Cool weather hasn’t iced the fishing action in Long Island waters
Memorial Day Weekend traditionally kicks off the summer season, but anglers should be careful not to jump the gun. With the cool weather we’ve seen some fish species are still holding in their spring hot spots.
This can be a good thing, prolonging the sweet, early season, shallow water bite while keeping heavy boating traffic to a minimum.
“The cool temperatures have kept winter flounder chewing,” said Gary Grunseich of Silly Lily Fishing Station in East Moriches. “The season runs through Tuesday and you can still catch your limit of two on incoming tide between Moriches Bay buoys 21 and 23. Set up in 8 to 10 feet of water on the south side of the main channel,” he advised.
Also loving the cool spring have been weakfish, which are showing up with surprising regularity in Moriches Bay between buoys 30 and 31. Scattered weakfish catches have also come from Peconic Bay off The Greenlawns and The Brickyard, and between Riverhead and Goldsmith Inlet on Long Island Sound.
Porgies are still hitting with spring abandon as well. “We have super scup action right now at Cherry Harbor,” said Capt. Mike Boccio of the Prime Time Fleet in Orient Point. “A lot of fish are in the 2- to 3-pound class and we’ve decked a few 4-pounders as well.”
Actually, everything seems to be biting well on the East End. Boccio’s fares in recent days also connected with fluke to 9 pounds and stripers to 35 pounds. The latter have moved into The Race, Plum Gut and the Montauk surf.
In the western South Shore bays, fluke are hitting best in shallow water on warm, outgoing tides. Target The Narrows around Smith Point on Moriches Bay, Ocean Beach in Great South Bay, and Baldwin Bay in South Oyster Bay. For North Shore fluke, hit Northport Bay, Port Jefferson Harbor or the waters right outside of Mattituck Inlet.
Port Jefferson has also been a hot spot for school bass. Last Saturday, Alex George of East Setauket jigged Got Stryper soft plastics and Panther Martin BigFin paddletails to hammer bass to 27 inches just inside the harbor entrance. “I just took my boat out for a shake-down cruise,” said George, “and found the bass stacked right in the main channel. The action was awesome.”
A big change for charting?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) plans to stop producing the 1,000-plus charts millions of recreational boaters rely on for navigation. If this is news to you, you’re not alone as there has been almost no publicity regarding the proposal.
NOAA’s recently released National Charting Plan calls for an end to production of the “Raster” (paper-style) charts recreational boaters use to determine depth and navigation routes.
For commercial vessels, new charts will have new symbols, colors, abbreviations and terms, and recording soundings in meters instead of feet.
If you find this proposal unnerving, as many skippers will, you can comment through NOAA’s Nautical Discrepancy Report System at http://ocsdata.ncd.noaa.gov/idrs/discrepancy.aspx — but hurry because all comments are due by June 1. To offer your input, enter your email address, type NCP in the “Other Products” field on the form, and post your thoughts under “Description of Discrepancy.”
