Working the beach - Capt. Brendan McCarthy

Again… with the weather. While flats fishing has sufffered minorly, of late, due to obvious visibility issues, there has been much ado within our region during what seems to be an extended early season, due to low temps, much cloud cover, weather and rainfall. If you could pick your days, there have been some great ones. Jersey shore has been fishing the exceptionally well with so many large bass being taken on flies. Peconic is fishing great and J-Bay is steady as it should be, like clockwork, as they say. Don’t let wet weather scare you off. Early mornings have been fruitful. Check the pix and send them to lionthefly@optonline.net

Gogettum. -Capt. Derr

Western Sound

Capt. Robin Calitri of LongIslandFlyFishing.com reports:

When the rains ceased the fish were ready to eat. There are schools of every sized blues up and down the sound. Use birds or your electronics to spot them. Olive over white clousers have been the ticket for us this week. James Pascarella joined fellow barrister Joel Weiss for a hot evening trip on CSicAgain out of Huntington Harbor on Tuesday, June 16. The fish had no defense for these two. James landed his first stripers and blues on the fly using his trout skills. Joel wacked the fish on spin gear using poppers, rattletraps and slugoes. There are Bass in tight to the structure which is a great way to take them on light tackle. Judging from the numbers of yearling bass we’re catching, we should have a great future fishery, here on the North Shore.

Thanks!

-Captain Calitri

New Jersey

Capt. Terry Sullivan reports with a tantalizing picture…

Yes...who wouldn't want one! Capt. Terry Sullivan

More of the same this week.   Steady easterly winds, overcast sky and good bass fishing.   Big bass are still the game with large schools of bunkers holding some impressive size fish  .Surf casters and kayakers got their shots again this week when fish came crashing into casting range, a few 50 pound plus fish were reported.  With a tricky weather forecast, luck was also on our side, being in the right place at the right time rewarded our anglers with some very good fish in the upper 30 pound class all week long.

-Captain Terry Sullivan
(732) 899-6245

A fat Jersey striper from the Yak...Capt. Terry Sullivan

New York/Metro

Peconic Bay

Brendan McCarthy reports:

Jbay striper - Capt. Brendan McCarthy

Hey Andrew, Good to see you out there the other day. Looked like you liked that spot quite a bit… must be !!! Well as you know the clouds and rain continue.  Normally (If itwerent June and the best flats month of the year) I wouldn’t mind the weather, as the Stripers sure do love it, and the ones in JBay are no exception. Unfortunately, The main body of them are almost nowhere to be seen in JBay.  Man, did we have it good, and don’t get me wrong, we are still having consistent, all day action on Bass and Blues, but the size and numbers are way down from last week.

Jason Scott, Kerry Heffernan, and Trevor all had good days on JBAY with me this week. Luckily, the East End flats are an exception, and since I have been having terrible boat issues (resolved now thank God) and the sun has been super shy, I haven’t needed to worry about it.

That all changed on Tuesday, and Chris Dawson fished with me for the 5th year in a row, and as usual, he crushed em. I told him I want to clone him as I have never seen anyone have better fishing/weather karma. Every year, no matter what day he picks, it is stellar. He landed well over a dozen fish to 31″, pricked many more and ended up with his best year yet.

There are some very big fish on the flats, so practice your casting and steel your nerves!! At one point we had 3 or 4 fish on in a row, (with one substantially bigger one), eat the fly. It took us 4 fish to check the fly and see that the hook was broken off!! AHHH!

Happy Happy Ya’ll.

Capt B McCarthy
www.Urbanflyguides.com

Capt. Andrew Derr wrote:

A nice flats striper - Capt. Andrew Derr

A little bit of a slow week for me. While I have been away most of the week, I did get out on a couple of less than ideal weather days, where we worked for our fish and poled the boat in heavy winds. Both days, our hard work paid off with some pretty nice bass in shallow water and some large bluefish to reward budding fly fisherman, Dave Gulden. Goodness, there are so many large fish on the flats right now, but it’s a shame not to have the light to spot them from more than 10 yards away. Backwaters are mudded up from the rainfall but areas with a lot of current have been clearing up reasonably quickly. Can’t wait to get home and get some more of the hearty fish we have been finding. They won’t say in the bay all summer… that is for sure. Temps are hanging in there so we should have many more weeks of quality flats fishing before they start getting more difficult to feed. More next friday.

Tight Lines.

Capt Andrew Derr
http://www.longislandonthefly.com
212.495.9062