July 19th, 2010
ByConnecticut Outfitter’s weekly fishing report for the week of July 18th, 2010.
“The best Striper Season in three years” is what Captain Blaine is experiencing in Long Island Sound just outside of Niantic. The weather continues to challenge anglers inland and inshore. Thick fog, oppressive heat and some lower flows have the astute angler changing their fishing patterns to match the conditions. Fresh water bass fishing has been excellent with many years of fisheries management paying off dividends of some fairly healthy catches.
Rivers and Streams:
Hickory shad have made an early appearance upriver this season with some huge fish in the 2-plus pound range being reported. Marty Feery of Wethersfield has been hammering the Hickories this week inside a local cove. Willow leaf and drail combo’s plus small kastmasters and other weighted spoons are working well. Keeper Stripers inland are few and far between at this time, but we can always count on schoolies for some fast action almost year-round. Night time bite for CT river “Monsta” Catfish is good to better.
Trout fishing is still doing reasonably well given the high daily temperatures; and water temps; Stretches of the Salmon just below the Jeremy, the Farmington, and other small rivers are still producing decent fish. Fishing is best just before and into dusk with mealies and crawlers on a drift, find deeper holes.
Lakes and ponds:
Batterson Park in Farmington/New Britain is giving up it’s share of Walleye, mostly caught on live bait at night in deeper water on slip floats. There is still a very healthy population of LMB in Wethersfield’s 1860 reservoir despite this spring’s fish kill. It seems the larger fish were less effected by whatever killed off a portion of the smaller fish population there. Black pond in Meriden, with it’s easy shore access to deeper water, has produced a good number of fish this season and continues to do so.
Inshore and Offshore:
Striper fishing has been excellent just outside the mouth of the CT river with fish in the 40’s common for experienced anglers. Bunker sightings are spotty, but building and we expect to see better numbers east of the CT in this coming week, so start practicing your cast-net techniques! Hickories are available in the early morning if you are quiet you can find them by listening for the tell-tale splashing of their breaches. Tube and worm trolling continues to produce action consistently.
Sand eels have also been a common forage for the big fish already this season, so small soft plastics on a jig head have been a “go-to” presentation from boat or from shore.
Blues are everywhere, what can we say? Fluke fishing continues to frustrate given the 19.5 minimum length as fishermen are hammering 17 and 18” fish. Keepers seem to be more consistent in 75-100 feet of water.
The Canyon is reportedly producing very strong numbers of Yellowfin. Some big Eye, Marlin and Mako also being caught on trolled Ballyhoo.
Take a kid fishing and GET OUT!