Fishing Reports

What an opener to the Porgy Season today!!!

WE pulled up to the grounds on the charter boat CQIII to find a school of porgies literally 7 football fields long this morning. Our 4 person charter BAILED porgies until they could not take it anymore, keeping only the largest 40.The CQII pulled up shortly thereafter a proceeded to Bail several hundred porgies as well (ORL). Amazing pile of fish right now off Port Jefferson.Ahhh….I love when it like this!

The last two days have been awesome!!
Working with Capt Jerry Mcgrath and his Fish N Kids program, over 90 children and their parents have experienced some truly great fishing!!!

Jerry's educational program is second to none as the kids were taught a variety of classes from marine ecology to navigation and safety before switching over to enjoy some truly remarkable fishing. Right now the local area is ALIVE with tons of fish. Huge schools of big porgies are piled up on the local rocks. The bluefish have been everywhere. And today thousands of schoolie striped bass were all over the shoal!

Incredible fishing right now!Cant wait for the PM Porgy Bonanza tomorrow Night!(ALL PORGIES WERE RELEASED!!!)

Nice catch of fluke again today.
7 fares had over 50 fluke on the day with 8 big keepers. Two fish weighed in a 7.5 lbs. Lots of action and bucktails are the way to go.

Nice catch of fluke today!!!
With all the sandeels around the fluke finally decided to bite today after a slow 2 weeks. 23 fares kept 14 big fluke with nearly 100 fluke caught, many of which were over 19.5 inches. Sharpies on board who were casting bucktails had great action today.

We continue to have a great time doing our educational school trips!!! These trips have really been a blast for the kids!

From seining plankton and using microscopes to dredging all sorts of sea life from different types of bottom, to just plain fishing, it has been a pleasure to spend our days with so many great kids, teachers, and families.

Hopefully, these programs will inspire a few of the kids to become fishermen! or at least help them gain an appreciation for our amazing marine environment!

As for our regular fishing trips, the fluke bite has been on the slow side with a handful of big fluke caught and a lot of fluke released. Tons of porgies are hitting the baits in certain areas (all released). Lots of blues have been feeding on the sand eels and we have enjoyed some great diamond jigging on a few of our pm trips.

June is usually the month the fluking really gets going so hopefully any day it should pick up!
Below are a few pictures from our recent trips.
(All porgies caught were released, some were even tagged and released!)

Here is a copy of Captain Jerry McGraths report which he posted on Noreast.com:

"Holy Moley! I've been doing the FISH N KIDS program/field trip activity for more than 3 decades. Today, in the more frugal of catching times, we had our best fishing day ever. I think that's a pretty impressive statement since the total # of trips has encompassed way over 100 excursions. The fish gods certainly answered all of the prayers of the 4th graders from the Oxhead Elementary School in Centereach.

After completing 90 minutes worth of learning stations on a most gorgeous, sunny day, we headed east in search of an area to dredge for sea creatures. Thanks to Capt. Desi, we found a productive bottom full of conch, hermit crabs, calico crabs, small surf clams, spider crabs, and other critters that roam the bottoms of the L.I. Sound. This was a fill-in activity since the slack water had just arrived and we didn't feel that the porgy bite was going to be at their optimum conditions.

However, once we arrived at the Rocky Point area, the fish immediately began chewing their heads off. The smaller scup found the baited hooks initially, but as time passed, the large and super-jumbos showed up at an incredible pace and in very good #s. I was amazed at some of the sizes of these scup. It was if they had bypassed the Montauk and New Bedford areas and came searching for every one of our rigs. Every child on board had at least a few fish, most had over ten porgies, doubleheaders were aplenty, and leading the way was Sammantha who caught 33 fish single-handedly and her nearby pal, Jacklyn, who caught a fish that easily topped 3 lbs. What a day!

Desi and I guessed that over 400 fish were brought to the boat and all were released. (Keeping scup on the partyboat/charterboats is legal only on June 12 and thereafter.) The kids did not seem to mind the release efforts one bit, probably because they were having so much fun with the catching routines. I wish I had a taperecorder on board to play back the sounds of excitement, joys and thrills. OOOHS & AAAHS hit record highs. IT WAS A TRIP THAT WILL LAST A LIFETIME IN THE MEMORIES OF MANY (including mine.) Many thanks go to Desi and his crew for their wonderful patience and friendly attitudes."

We had a great week with our educational school trips. From seining plankton to bottom trawl surveys, the kids had a great time learning about our local marine environment. We resumed fishing again this past weekend but unfortunatley the bite was very slow. Some nice big fluke were landed but not the numbers we had last week. There were many shorts on some trips as well as blue fish. On a few of the evening trips we also had a lot of porgies which we released…though the kids still had a lot fun reeling them in.

Hopefully the fluke bite picks up again soon. We will be doing more marine education trips again this week on our day trips, so we most likely will not have another fishing report until next weekend. Hope to see you soon!

Bit if a slow pick for us out there today. 15 keepers were landed on the day. Some big fish though with Steve Abromowitz winning the pool with a 7.5 lb beauty.

We will be sailing educational school trips during the day through this thursday, so we may not have another fishing report up for a few days. All the afternoon trips are open though as well as all trip friday through monday. See you soon!

Little breezy out there this morning but conditions settled down a bit by mid morning. Picked away at the fluke on the outgoing tide as 11 anglers caught 18 keepers for the am trip. Rich Healy won the pool with a 6 lb flattie !
Not a bad day at all.

Fluke were biting very well today!!!

Only 4 fares today so we just did a half day trip. Total was 13 keepers to nearly 7 lbs!
Quality stuff today!

Great to be fishing again!!!

Today was the long awaited fluke opener. 6 fares landed about 30 fluke on the day, 7 of which were keepers. The keepers were all quite large and bucktails were the ticket today. Lots of sandeels around up on the shoal and hopefully this is just the beginning of good days to come.