5/31 out east

[joshr]

Well, Peter told of part of our day, but figured I'd fil in the rest.

Launched the flats boat at Harbor Marina about 6:45 am figuring the clear skies wouldn't last long given the forecast. Peter (Tuna) was drifting in 3 Mile Harbor as I put in, but he decided to head for the flats real early since the sun would likely only last a few hours. I drifted for about an hour and got one bass about 22" and lost one that I never saw. Jeff Palmer was making the same drifts I was, and I saw him get a couple as well. About 8am I picked up my Dad at Harbor Marina and we headed west to Shelter since the water has been a lot warmer back there than on the flats east of Acabonac that I usually fish this time of year.

Poled the flat south of Nichols pt and saw nada. Headed to North Haven where Peter had reprted good flats action from the previous day....sun was in and out so it was tough spotting conditions. We saw 2 singles...no real shots. A bit after Peter left we headed towards the ferry slip and played with blues for a bit and got a few small guys quickly. Then I saw some birds working very close to the shore a bit east of the ferry slip. I suspected they might be over bass and not blues given where they were. We idled over and my Dad put in a blind cast and hooked up immediately--a 14" dink bass had taken his 6 inch fly....on wire! He hadn't put down the bluefish rod cause he didn't think I was right that they were bass. So we switched to the flats/bass rod. As I was getting up on the poling platform, I saw a great pod of 10-12 fish--and real big fish!--milling around and feeding right off the stern...we had spooked them out of a little pocket a yard off the beach but they hadn't bolted...they kept working behind the boat, but Pop couldn't see them from the bow and never got a cast into them....it was one of those heartbreaking sights from the platform where you know there is a guaranteed hookup with a big fish if the fly gets near 'em.

Anyway, we poled that beach and soon enough saw a pair of decent fish--again, just a yard off the beach in a trough...Dad got the fly in the right place and we boated a 24"er. By then, we had worked that shoreline over pretty hard. Sun was out again, so we gave east side of North Haven one more shot...saw a few singles, although not a lot...had one good shot a big fish but never got the fly to him. headed home about 11:45 when the ominous clouds started to appear.

So, a terrible weather forecast turned into a decent morning of fishing.

--Josh

[fmw]

Since Tuna's post had plenty of replies, I thought I would post mine here.

Went out Saturday as well. Like everyone else, anticipating bad weather, went out real early. On the drive to Montauk, I stopped for twenty minutes of predawn/dawn action on the bay side of Amagansett. Still no bait there and no bass at all. Sand eels still not in yet.

Got to my boat and went around to the south side where I saw surfcasting reports were pretty good. Casting with a sinking line was unsuccessful -- although I just don't think I was getting as nearly as close to shore as I should have to be successful.

Began to see diving birds, although no fish on top. Drove around chasing a bit, assuming it was blues. Still unsuccessful. Diving birds began to increase, as did fleet of charter boats, etc. Turned out the game was diamond jigging in anywhere from 35 to 60 feet of water with fish mostly on the bottom. Despite the fact there was only very occassionally a swirl on the surface, the amount of birds stretched for many hundreds of yards and resembled a fall blitz. Once I surrendered the fly rod for a diamond jig, I pulled up a mix of 5 to 8 lb. blues and 28 to 30" inch bass. Mostly right on the bottom. They were eating spearing. Continued periodic attempts to cast to the few fish coming toward the top with a sinking line continued to prove unsuccessful. Water temps still very cold -- 48!! Action cooled off around 10:30 or 11:00.

Went in for lunch around noon and as Tuna would say, I NOAA's myself as I got spooked by the increasing wind and darkening skies. However, just after cleaning off boat and packing up, the wind layed down and the skies brightened till 3 o'clock or so.

[joshr]

FMW--

Great to get a report from the ocean side. Amazing that ocean temps are still that low...really explains why even the bay east of Acabonac is so much colder than the Peconics. Water temps around North Haven were 10 degrees warmer than by Promised Land...kind of amazing given that's just maybe 10 miles apart.

I hope we see some sand eels in the bay soon!

--JHR

[fmw]

I'm going to amend my report slightly . . . I thought that the bait the fish were eating were spearing . . . but I kind of said to myself at the time . . . they look like bay anchovies but are just too big and its probably spearing. Sure enough, I read the Montauk report in the current Noreast magazine and there's a quote from a tackle shop saying that the bait the fish are on appears to be large anchovies. Hearing someone else say that, I agree.

Yes, hopefully waters will warm up soon and sand eels will arrive. I definitely had the feeling a large quantity of bass is hanging out at the point, ready to move into the bays with the bait.

[bonesnbass]

Finally saw sandeels and a good amount around Shelter, not on the flats but cruising along a steep shoreline. And yes the small blues are spitting up anchovies, adults that are gonna make lots of alby food