Montauk Pioneer - August 22, 2008

Fishing should be exciting this week because the Hamptons Offshore Invitational is going on all week. Not too much has been brought in so far, so there are still fish to be caught. I went out on Sunday to try and get on the leader board with the Spellmans Marine Fishing team, but we had no luck.

Offshore seemed to be a little off this week. The fishing was no good. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was good for a few people. It wasn't however, for the boat I was on and some 50 odd other boats around us at the Hudson this weekend. We trolled around all day and all we got were a few Skippies. Even the Mahi weren't biting. We had them under a pot, and they didn't even want to bite. We heard a few Big Eyes were taken the day before in the same area we were fishing, but no such luck on Sunday. There was one Yellowfin taken by Mike Tucci on the "Rebel" who is on the top of the board for the day division with a 62 lb fish. That was about all the excitement for our trip out in the tournament this weekend. We're going out tomorrow morning to try and redeem ourselves and try a different spot.

As for the rest of the Offshore report, the Canyon bite has been a strange one this year, and the sharking still seems to be pretty good. There are still numerous White and Blue Marlins being taken regularly. Plenty of Bill fish action throughout the deep, I even heard one guy on the radio go something like 15 for 22 on White Marlin. There are also Big Eye to be caught out there, you just got to be in the right spot at the right time. The best I heard was someone going 3 for 4 on them, and occasional reports of one being caught here and there. The Mahi are definitely out there, under almost every pot. Just throw some chunks under there and they will be their. I didn't hear anything on the Albacore, hopefully they will be here soon. I also heard a few reports of guys sharking having Blue Fin coming into their slick as close as 12 miles off the beach. You don't have to go too far for sharks right now, that's for sure. You may have to work hard for something to bring in for the BBQ but there's plenty of Browns, and small Mako being taken within 12 miles. I have been hearing reports of Makos being caught while fluking in 60 ft of water. I saw a report online that some guy actually caught his half eaten fluke along with a 40lb mako. Even I have witnessed this last Wednesday when we had a 6 ft thresher chase a hi-lo rig while in 54 feet of water fluke fishing.

Fluke fishing is still hot everywhere between 40 and even 80 ft of water. My father and I went out last week to try and find a monster. Using live snappers, and large killies we caught about 3 keepers, one of which was a 7lb 6 oz 28 inch Fluke. We had all sorts of life all around us though, sun fish, and a 6 ft thresher chasing fluke rigs. With the season coming to an end, it wasn't a terrible year for fluke fishing. There seemed to be a lot more 4-10 lb fish and definitely a lot more shorts. Well get out there before the Fluking season is over and catch 'em up. Hopefully I will have some pictures of some nice big eye or yellowfin that I get tomorrow that we can bring to the scale.