I was throwing a junebug spiderjig and had a couple light hits around submerged rocks in 6-8 ft of water, but nothing would stay on. Brian was throwing a candy corn colored senko type bait made by bass pro shops. With no success in the deeper water we decided to try something a little more shallow.

On our way to the north end of the lake brian saw some rocks in 4 ft of water we had never seen before (the lake is down 2 ft). We stopped and brian threw his candy corn stick bait at the rocks. He instantly hooked into something big. His rod doubled up and the fight was on. After 10 seconds it was over and we never saw the fish.

After a brief cursing session brian threw right back in the place he had hooked up, and instantly the fight was on again. This time he landed it. It was about 24 inches and 6.5 lbs. Sometimes things just work out I guess.

We kept fishing for another hour, but the wind had picked up and the temp dropped. In all we landed one smallmouth and 4 largemouth. Not a bad first trip if I say so myself!

Just for you Brian, here is the profile.

After thinking a lot about all the hold over schoolie striped bass in Norwich Harbor in March in previous years, I decided to try my luck for a bit tonight. I figured with the warm weather this weekend the stripers would be active, so armed with an Arkansas shiner colored super fluke on a 3/8 ounce jighead, I made the trek behind the police station onto the harbor edge.

As I was getting there another fisherman was leaving. He told me he had fished with plugs for the last two days and had nothing to show for it, so tonight he tried some chunk bait, also resulting in a big old skunk. Unfortunately this was a sign of things to come for me.

I fished the pilings and docks in the harbor that are castable for the shore behind Norwich police station. After 45 minutes of nothing the rain started picking up, so I decided to call it quits for the night. On my way out I spoke with another fisherman that was throwing chunks and a deep diving bomber who also had no luck tonight.

He did however have some info regarding the recent striper bite in re harbor. He told me that the boats had been doing well on umbrella rigs all day, and other people had been fishing around the private docks using 6 inch live shiners, which resulted in fish in the 30+ lb range.

Later I spoke with a few buddies in the area that said there were so many fish on their depth finder the last few days they had to just turn it off since it was worthless. They told me that the fish have only been accessible via a boat. So I guess the moral of the story is if you aren’t on a boat don’t waste your time in Norwich Harbor just yet.

Now I just can’t wait for this cold to break so I can start posting some fishing reports in real time…

Just in case you were wondering, this post was made from my iPhone.

Yesterday Brian and I joined Greg, a lifetime saltwater fisherman in Mystic for a shot at the sounds triple crown, blackfish, bluefish and stripers. We got on the water around 7am and headed out of Mystic on Greg’s 26 foot fishing machine looking for early morning stripers and blues on topwater. Before we even made it past the boats in the marinas we saw some birds working and a few splashes under them. As we got there the birds flew off and the action stopped, but we still threw some plugs and poppers, which didn’t produce a single hit.

Not seeing anything else working the surface we fished a reef near Watch Hill using umbrella rigs, tube and worm, and topwater plugs with not even a single hit. Greg assured us this was on of his top spots for catching big bass and blues, and that the fish should be here at some point in the day. After a few passes trolling we decided to reel up and head to the deeper water out at the Race. On our way out we saw hundreds of birds working so we shot over to try some more topwater, but just couldn’t get a hit, no matter what we threw at them, or what we trolled by them. Frustrated we continued on to the Race.

We trolled around Valiant Rock with umbrella rigs, and finally got a hit (a 5lb bluefish). Trolling some more resulted in nothing despite a large flock of birds working the entire area. Watching the depth finder I noticed a few fish holding tight to the bottom and no visible bait balls anywhere on the screen, so we decided to discontinue the futile trolling effort and start three-waying some bucktails.

I tied one on and dropped it down and as soon as it hit the bottom I had a fish on. Greg saw me hook up and switched to a bucktail and almost immediately hooked up too. We had a double on our first drop. Brian was using a diamond jig with no luck, so we hooked him up with a bucktail, and he hooked up with a nice blue shortly after we released ours. We bucktailed for another 30 minutes and landed a few more blues before the slack went tide and our drift turned into a crawl.

Deciding fishing would be slow for a bit we moved into Fisher’s Island Sound to try our hand at some blackfishing. We anchored up in 20 ft of water on the edge of a small submerged rock pile, and rigged up some halved green crabs. I started out using a lighter spinning rod that I had used previously blackfishing, and Greg says to me “You sure that pole is meaty enough for blackfish?” Just as I am saying yeah I have fished with it before with no problems, I get a hit and the drag goes screaming. Before I could tighten it up the fish had me in the rocks. It came out once and immediately found another hiding spot and broke me off. I switched to a heavy duty rod after that!

We were fishing off the back of the boat and Brian and I were nailing fish after fish including a few porgies and cunners, with the blackfish mixed in. Greg tried everything but just couldn’t land one that day. We even let him switch spots with Brian and still nothing… Brian did catch a few Tautogs in his spot though

We only had 3 dozen green crabs with us and the fish were biting so we ran out of bait quick. In total we landed about 10 blackfish and 5 were keepers with the biggest being around 4 lbs. When we ran out of crabs Brian and I tried some of the Berkeley Gulp sandworms and actually caught a few blackfish and porgies on them to my surprise.

After Blackfishing we decided to troll around Greg’s favorite reef by Watch Hill again, but unfortunately the swells were still ripping and the fish were no where to be found. Bucktailing that area also produced nothing but a small black sea bass.

Wanting to find that elusive striped bass to complete our triple crown, we thought about heading back out to the Race, but since we wouldn’t have much time to fish once we got out there we decided to save the gas for another time, and headed in to clean our blackfish and get on the road.

Overall we had a great time and it was really nice fishing with Greg, he really knows those fishing grounds… even though he couldn’t land a blackfish … He did invite us back out on Sunday to try again, but maybe we turn down the offer so he can catch a few this time.

I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a late October day, I even got a little bit of a tan since it was mid 60′s with bright sunshine.

We got out on the water around 7:30am and started fishing shallow structure with everything from texas rigged senkos to spinnerbaits with no luck. After finding nothing in the shallows we went across the lake to fish deeper water and structure. Brian stuck with a senko and I switched over to a black and blue spider grub (technically it was the chompers hula grub). We both fished around the docks and pontoon boats (the ones that are still in the water) with minimal luck.

We both persevered with our respective baits and fished for about an hour with nothing more than a couple nibbles, until we got to some deeper docks on the north west shore of the lake. Just as I was commenting that I should be getting fish on spider grubs this time of year, I hooked up with a 2 pound largemouth. The next cast resulted in a 2.5lb largemouth. Having thought I found a pattern we continued fishing the deep water docks, and managed to find another 6 or seven fish including 2 smallmouth. Brian ended up landing only a smallmouth and 1 largemouth on the senko, despite his 5 hours of hard work casting and skipping his bait under the docks.

Largest fish of the day was only about 3lbs, and they were few and far between, but hopefully once our weather pattern settles down and the rain stops we will see some better fall fishing. If anyone is having success with other baits this time of the year let me know via the comments section below!

Date: 9/21/08

Since the season was winding down on Cedar Lake we decided to take the boat out of the water last weekend and make a trip to the sounds for some striper, bluefish, and porgy fishing before we dropped the boat off at the marina to be winterized. We launched out of the Baldwin Bridge launch in Old Saybrook aroun 5:30AM, but didn’t make it out into open water until 6:45AM since the fog was in thick and visibility was only about 5 feet!

At one point a 50 foot boat crossed in front of us about 10 feet off our bow and we barely saw it.  Thank god for GPS otherwise we would have never made it to the sound… As soon as the sun came up the fog burned off and we were able to open it up and head out to the eastern rip.  We three way’d eels on two rods and and fresh bunker chunks on one rod from 30-50 feet.  Almost immediately we hooked up with a nice bluefish that gave a pretty good fight and weighted about 12 lbs on the boga grips.

Here is a shot of my friend Robbie with his catch:

We had 2 or three more big hits on the eels, but nothing else was boated on the rip. The fresh bunker was left untouched the whole day. After an hour of drifting we moved to Long Sand Shoal to try our luck, but nothing was biting there either.

A short trip to Outer Hatchetts Reef and we were drifting live eels and bunker chuck with no success again.  At this point the tide went slack and we decided to switch into porgy mode catching 20-30 porgies and about the same number of small black sea bass using clams and squid. It was coming up on lunch time so we decided to tube and worm with t-man custom tackle tubes and sandworms up the shoreline back to the dock and dine, but never had a strike on those either. We ate lunch and headed back out to the eastern rip and tried our luck with our last couple eels.

We hooked up pretty quick when we got back to the rip, but it turned out to be a skate.

It was getting late and the sun, water, and fishing had beat us up all day, and we still needed to scrub down the boat and drop it off at the marina, so we headed back to the launch.

Overall we had a fun day, even though we didn’t have the best luck…

Our guide found a solution for us, and paired us with another couple that was going to go out on a panga and we were able to get a shared trip on a 28 foot diesel hatteras, despite the 5-6 foot seas. Our guide drove the boat over from Cozumel (about an hour away) to accomodate us, we met with the other couple we were fishing with, and we set sail around 10AM.

Since the water drops off very quickly, the ride to the fishing grounds only took 5 minutes. Our mate was Miguel and our Captain was Freddy.  Miguel started baiting and rigging the lines as soon as we got moving and had 5 lines out and fishing within 10 minutes.  We had a down rigger, 2 flat lines, and 2 outriggers, all with ballywhoo rigged in different colors, and we were fishing 200 feet of water.

The seas were really rough and Freddy wasn’t paying much attention most of the time, so the ride was interesting.  Within 25 minutes Kate was not feeling so well despite taking Dramamine, so you can use your imagination on how that went.

The fishing was slow, the diesel engine was stinky, the sun was blazing, and the seas were really high, but we did manage 2 fish, and lost another 2 or 3 at the boat.

Here are some pictures of the kingfish and the barracuda that I caught.

We did learn some interesting facts out there from the mate, including how to tell if barracuda meat is poisonous or not.  Miguel told us that if you cut open a barracuda and taste its liver and it is sweet, it is good to eat, and if it is spicy, it is poisonous and you should stay away. Now doesn’t raw barracuda liver sound delicious?

The trip didn’t produce the sailfish, marlin, or dorado (mahi mahi) that I was hoping for, but at least it was an experience… and at least it was only a 4 hour trip (for Kate’s sake)…

On my third cast with the swimming senko, I landed a 2.5lb largemouth off of a marker buoy. I was fishing it just like I would a regular senko for the most part, but would give it some swimming action around structure. This swimming action seemed to be the key since senko fishing had been slow the last few times I went out. Over the 45 minutes of fishing I landed 7 keepers (largest was about 3lbs), and I missed 3-4 good strikes.

If your senko fishing has slowed down this time of year I would recommend trying the swimming senko by yamamoto baits or kinami. I was using the 4 inch watermelon with red flake for those who were wondering, and the water was moderately stained last night.

I also threw a spinnerbait for a while with no success, so I guess it is back to slow and low for a while until the fall bite turns on…

After minimal success we decided to try the docks on the west side of the lake since we hadn’t fished them in quite some time, and it turned out to be a good move. We landed another 10 fish on senkos from under the docks… The fishing wasn’t easy though since the fish were suspended way under the docks and pontoons boats requiring an accurately skipped bait under the docks. The recent rain made this even more difficult since the water levels were up a foot or so from last week.

Most fish that we landed were decent quality in the 2+ lb range and one monster topping out at around 6lbs.

Here’s a few shots of this chunky hog.

That is one fat bass… Especially for the end of summer!

Hopefully this pattern will hold up until the next time I have a few hours to spend on the lake. It has been cold at night lately so I would imagine the fish won’t stay on the docks for too long. If you are fishing this weekend, give the docks a try and you might very well land yourself a trophy! In case you were wondering, this fish was released unharmed to fight another day.

I threw everything I had in my bag including senkos (wacky rigged and texas rigged), spinnerbaits, topwater, and jigs, but for 2.5 hours of fishing we only landed 5 fish, of which only 1 was a “keeper”.  Total tally was 1 on a wacky rigged senko, 1 on a texas rigged senko, and 3 on a spinnerbait retrieved quickly across the surface. All fish were largemouth bass.

Overall we had fun even though the fish didn’t cooperate, and Sally enjoyed barking at everyone on the lake!