The story of this week was the moon according to Captain Craig Cantelmo of Van Staal reels. The surf scene was quiet due to all of the extra light which kept the fish well off the beach. However, the boats did great fishing the rips from the Gut, Sluiceway, Race and the North Rips. The surf fishing should heat back up later this week, while those on boats dropping bucktails, scup or eels should continue to do well on big bass.
Further west, Captain John McMurray of One More Cast Charters says the bass, while still around, have been conspicuously hard to catch. The good thing is that the bluefish are enormous. He’s had to run a ways offshore to get them but has been consistently catching bluefish north of 15 pounds, and some real bruisers approaching 20 pounds. There are still bass to be caught in Jamaica Bay, but the water is very murky and the bass are small and finicky. The flats behind Breezy Point, which usually fish good this time of the year, are offering no visibility at all, thus no sight-fishing. Thank goodness for those bluefish! There are still no sign of pelagics, unless of course you’re willing to run out 90 miles to the Canyon. And there are no inshore pelagics to speak of either. John expects they will show up soon enough though, certainly by August, so stay tuned. If you want a crack at some of these big blues, John can put you on these acrobatic bruisers.
Check back every Wednesday for a new report.
–Tee Clarkson
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