8/17 Went All Over, for Everything

8/15 and 8/16 I had 2 guys from PA for full day charters 2 days in a row. Plan was to try for Tuna in the mornings, and try for everything else the rest of the day, as weather forecast was looking very good.

Early morning 8/15 we went back to Habs to try for the Tuna, knowing the bite had slowed, but also knowing the Mammal show alone would make their day. If we were going to skunk, we would do it in style with an awesome showing of Whales and Dolphins, and that's pretty much exactly what happened. Not a single Tuna bite, I think I marked 2 fish all morning, both high up in the water column. The Whale and Dolphin show however was out of this world, with Whales everywhere displaying all sorts of crazy feeding behavior, and big pods of dophins doing the same. By 9-10am I knew we were beat so we went inshore a bit to try for Fluke. First stop was Cartwright, which was on our back, small fleet there, we gave it a 15 minute drift, saw no fish caught in the fleet, and we were getting ravaged by dink seabass so we headed east to more familiar waters.

Pulled up to the first spot south of Block I wanted to fish, about 50' of water, and within 2 minutes had a keeper Fluke on the deck, about 20". We stayed at this spot for about 2 hours and caught something like 30 Fluke with 7 or 8 keepers, one being a nice specimen at 27". We kept 4 and released the rest, including the 27", and at that point these guys had their fill of Flukin. They really wanted to fish the Windmills, so we made our way over there to give it a shot, which proved to be pretty slow. Seabass, Seabass, Seabass.. and not even much for keepers. Not what they hoped, but for early afternoon, mid August, I wasn't surprised with the outcome. We switched back to Fluke and fished our way back to Point Judith with storms brewing on the horizon, we caught a handful of keeper Seabass and short Fluke from both the East Grounds and local to Point Judith, before calling it a day.

Day 2, plan was to try the Gully for Tuna, then come inshore from there. We were greeted to a surprise East Wind, making the ocean rough enough that the ride to the Gully would have been pretty bad, so we stopped short and threw topwater along the South side of Block. These guys wanted Striper/Bluefish/Whatever else on Plugs, and we did get into a good bite, it was just mostly Bluefish. Most of them were in the 3-6lb range with a few in the 10lb range, but the action was fast. We also twice had Sandbar sharks take our fish, even in tight in less than 20' of water. Couple Small Bass were in the mix but Blues were the dominate species. With the forecast showing an increase in the wind late morning I figured we may as well go back to shore just to be safe as the tide was about to switch against the wind, and the crossing would likely get a lot worse after the tide change. We ran all the way to Newport from there, after checking a dead west wall and Point Judith. Stripers were the target, and it wasn't anything special, but we slow picked some decent fish in the 30"-38" range mostly trolling Tubes. We saw Bonito pop up once or twice but just a few fish at a time and they wouldnt bite. Not much to see in terms of Blitzes or Bird Play anywhere along Naragansett or Newport, but plenty of fish read on the fishfinder. By days end I heard the West Wall had been decent for Bonito, didn't sound like anything crazy, but a good enough showing that most anglers caught at least a couple.

All in all, these guys were happy with what they got, no Tuna but up close and personal with dozens if not hundreds of Humpback whales, got on a good Fluke bite in whats been a tough season, got a good Topwater bite even though they were mostly Blues, and got to tug on some decent Stripers. The season hasn't been what I expect compared to the past few years, everything has been a little slower than usual, but still plenty to catch, and things change quick, things could turn on any time.