North Carolina Saltwater Fishing Reports
Lots of good reports from North Carolina earlier this week before Hanna, offshore boats were catching a lot of yellowfin, dolphin and billfish. Inshore, Spanish Mackeral, bluefish, and red drum were keeping anglers happy. One TidalFIsh member reported of a dolphin being caught off the pier in Nags Head. With all the run off from Hanna and the weather from Ike on the way, anglers will probably be stuck on the couch this week or limited to freshwater lakes and ponds.

Bill from Oregon Inlet Fishing Center reported: ”
September 4, 2008 Fishing Report
Busy day here at Oregon Inlet Fishing Center. Most of the boats have left for safe refuge in case one of these hurricanes (Hanna), comes calling. A few boats went off shore. They caught dolphin, tuna and bilfish. White marlin in particular are numerous followed by sailfish and there is alsways the posibility of hooking a spectacular blue one. One boat had eight white marlin and a blue marlin. There were at least twenty five white marlin released today. Inshore Great spanish mackerel, tailor bluefish and false albacore. Open boats caught speckled trout and flounders. Miss Oregon Inlet caught croakers, sea mulet and grey trout.

September 2, 2008 Fishing Reports
A wonderful variety of catches made at the Gulf Sream. Lots of dolphin including some citation gaffers. Citation yellowfin tunas weighing 96, 73, 79, 65 and 81 pounds. Lots of billfish. caught and released.I counted 27 white marlin flags, seven sailfish and one blue marlin. The blue marlin combined with three white marlin and a sailfish made it a grand slam. Inshore lots of tailor bluefish and spanish mackerel. False albacore were also caught and a barracuda. Open boats had a good day on soeckled trout. An allday trip caught bluefish and cobia. Miss Oregon inlet caught sea mullet.”

TW’s Bait and Tackle reported: ”
September 6, 2008 Fishing Reports
No report this morning. The storm is no more than what we usually have with a nor’easter. The good news, we are not having the beach erosion we have with the NE winds. That’s a good thing.

September 4, 2008 Fishing Reports
Surf Fishing Report: John Newbold of TW’s Tackle caught and released many Drum south of Oregon Inlet on Wednesday. The largest one measuring at 33 in.
Sound Fishing Report: The Little Bridge reported Specks and Flounder.
Pier Fishing Report:
Avalon: Blues and Spanish.
Nags Head: Blues, Spanish and a few Pompano.
Outer Banks: Spot, Blues and Spanish.
Inshore Boats Report: Spanish, blues King Mackerel, Triggerfish and False Albacore
Offshore Boats Report: Yesterday was another great billfish day. Another grand slam. Lots of Dolphin and Yellowfin.”

NORTH CAROLINA FISHING REPORTS COVERING THE ENTIRE NORTH CAROLINA COAST

Reported from North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries

From Knotts Island to Ocracoke:
Ocean: Offshore fishing remains good with limits of dolphin, greater amberjack, blueline tilefish, wahoo, barracuda, and assorted snappers and groupers out of the  Hatteras marinas.  Tuna catches remain few with the exception of a few bigeye tuna out of the northern Outer Banks marinas.  Billfish catches remain consistent, with good catches of sailfish and blue and white marlin.  Midrange catch rates made a modest improvement, with some very large striped bass being caught 8 to10-miles offshore along with a few red drum, triggerfish, and black seabass.  Artificial reefs have been producing some nice sheepshead and tautog on a fairly regular basis.  Fishing slowed a bit for inshore anglers.
Inlets/Sounds/Bays: Flounder have been the primary target of these anglers, and for good reason! Well over 50% of the ones they hook are legal keeping size.  Oregon Inlet has produced the bulk of them with most catches in the very shallow areas near the various islands, but nice specimens were caught throughout the region.  Spotted seatrout  and citation size croakers were caught in Roanoke Sound underneath the Washington Baum Bridge.  There have been some good catches of striped bass at Manns Harbor.
Piers/Shore: Success rates slowed, with only a few bluefish and Spanish mackerel being caught.  A few spot, croaker, pigfish, pinfish, blue runners, spadefish, skates, and assorted sharks were all also caught.  There were some good cobia catches from piers, especially at night, with a few citation size catches being landed.
General Overview: Anglers continued to have moderate success rates in most modes and favorable weather conditions predicted for the coming week.  Tropical storm Hanna may affect fishing efforts toward the end of the week.

From Portsmouth to Surf City:

Ocean:  Fishing for Spanish mackerel is wide open.  Fish, two pounds or more can be caught off the beaches from Cape Lookout to Bogue Inlet.  Swimming with them are bluefish, which are especially thick on the Cape Lookout Shoals.  Black sea bass can be found on AR 330 along with good-sized flounder. The Honeyhole contains dolphin.  Wahoo can be hooked around AR 300 and kings are around Buoy 14.
Inlets/Sounds/Bays: Sheepshead are still here and can be caught along the seawall at the state port, and all the posts and pilings of the bridges in the county. The Turning Basin at the state port has pigfish, sea mullet, lizardfish, flounder and undersized sea bass.
Piers/Shore:  Good-sized sea mullet and pigfish can be found in the surf. Large bluefish were jumping close to the beaches on Radio Island. Piers had a mixed bag – a little of everything from Spanish in the early mornings to shark, rays pigfish, croakers and spots during the heat of the day.

From Topsail to Sunset Beach:
Ocean: Offshore, the wahoo have been biting pretty good over the last week or two. If the wahoo don’t bite you can move inshore a few miles and try bottom fishing for red grouper. Closer to shore there were some decent king catches last week around the tower as well as some African pompano.  Ledges in the 10 to 20-mile range produced some outstanding sailfish catches last week. Near shore reefs are still producing nice flounder and a few large red drum.
Inlets/Sounds/Bays: There wasn’t a lot of change from previous weeks. Flounder fishing seems to be fair with some fish over eight pounds caught last week. Trout are also biting decent in the Cape Fear River. Both flounder and trout are being caught from Southport to Wilmington. Live menhaden and finger mullet are catching the flounder and live shrimp are producing the trout. Black and red drum are being reported in the same areas as well.
Piers/Shore: Fishing was fair last week. Spanish mackerel and some nice king mackerel were caught on the Oak Island Pier earlier in the week. Anglers on area piers reported catches of flounder, black drum, pompano, sea mullets, and a few bluefish.

DESPITE ALL THE WARNING SIGNS ON BASS…
Delaware and Pennsylvania have submitted a joint proposal for “alternative management” in the Delaware Bay, River and tributaries.  Delaware proposes to adopt striped bass regulations for recreational anglers incorporating a slot limit for smaller fish so that they may target mature male striped bass for a two-month period in summer or early fall within Delaware’s portion of the Delaware River, Bay and its tributaries.  In concert with Delaware, Pennsylvania proposes to adopt the same regulations for anglers targeting mature male striped bass for the two month period of the spring (April and May).

So, what will such a slot limit do?  It will allow them to kill lots of small fish which of course is not good.  Undoubtedly, small fish are easier to catch than the larger keeper sized fish so it’s likely that it will push fishing mortality numbers up.  And if you read last week’s column, you know that we’re already fishing a hair above the target and that the threshold was lowered, thus we’re already pretty close to the overfishing trigger.  While it is possible that the proposal may not have that much of and affect on overall harvest, any increase should be avoided.

Furthermore, if Delaware gets to take 20″ fish on its side of Delaware Bay, New Jersey will probably want the right to take a 20” fish as well.  Folks over there have been trying to get  “producer” status for years, which would essentially give them the power to kill such small bass.

Also, we have to keep in mind that there will undoubtedly be substantial “discard mortality” (fish that die but cannot be kept) on those larger females that don’t fall within the slot.  Keep in mind that right now the recreational discard mortality is twice what the total commercial catch is.  Delaware already has a circle hook regulation and Pennsylvania is suggesting one, however even with circlehooks there will be some increase in such mortality.  I think we also need to ask the question here about the optimum male/female ratio during the spawn.  Common sense tells us that if we stop killing off all the small males it would affect the spawn.

This proposal is essentially  a “fish grab”.  The DE and PA folks want to shift effort from summer flounder (which is highly regulated these days) and weakfish (which don’t really represent much of a viable fishery in that area anymore) to small male striped bass.  Not good in my book.  So in short, I’m not in favor of this proposal and I will certainly say so at the next Striped Bass Advisory Panel meeting.  Stay tuned.  Will let you know how it works out.

Fishing Reports
Just a short distance off the Jersey coast, the bluefin fishing has been off the hook.  They are mostly trolled up fish, but the aces like Gene Quigley are getting a few here and there on the fly and that’s pretty darn cool.  These aren’t the school bluefin either.  These are the fish north of 100 pounds.  Inshore it’s been pretty much all bluefish with some roving schools of bonito.  Still, the bonito season down there isn’t near what it was last year.  But really, who cares if you’ve got 100 pound bluefin within small-boat range.  In the New York bite area, I’m sorry to say that there are still no bonito around.  And unfortunately, no albies yet either.  There have been some reported sightings, but I haven’t heard of anyone connecting.  The bait concentration remains extraordinary with bay anchovies so thick that they turn the water a different color.  And the peanut bunker are abundant as well.  Yet still, there is nothing on them but small to medium bluefish.  Fortunately, I’m still picking away at some big chopper bluefish on poppers up against the structure.  Not a bad gig, but it’s time we see those speedsters.  And speaking of speedsters, farther east on the South Shore there were some reports of good bonito and albie blitzes, coming mostly from Fire Island Inlet east.  Unfortunately, that’s a bit out of range for me.  But the big news this week was way east.  Montauk pretty much exploded this week with major bass blitz action.  It was going off Montauk-Style for a good part of the week and anglers were on it.  These weren’t just schoolies either.  Some really nice fish were taken.  Up on the North Shore the short bonito bite they had there seems to be done for.  Anglers are keeping busy with schoolies and bluefish though.  Same deal with western Connecticut.  Eastern Connecticut has some larger bass, but no hard tails.  At least none that I’ve heard of.   Folks in Rhode Island are still picking away at the bonito.  The bass fishing is slow out there but it should pick up any day now.  Same deal with most of Mass.  Haven’t heard anything out of Maine this week, except for some rumblings of shots at bluefin.

New Jersey Fishing Reports
Capt. Paul Eidman from Reel Therapy Guide Service checks in with this report:
“This past Monday, got out and fished all of outgoing tide in clean waters off of NY bayshore, found large schools of rain fish but they were largely happy and unbothered…
Caught many hard fighting, fly eating bluefish from 4-6 pounds in adjacent schools of peanuts.”

Capt. Gene Quigley from Shore Catch Guide Service checks in with an offshore report:
“Sorry just got in. The Bluefin and Mahi Fishing right now is as good as it gets. Fish have been within 13 miles of our shores and busting on top for acres on some days. other days we scout them out on the troll, find em, chum em with live peanuts and crush em on the fly. This week we say fish over 100 lbs come over our rails on light tackle and fish to 40 lbs on fly tackle. We have not seen this action in years here along our coast and our BFT season really has not even started. Normally it does not get underway until late September. We ran trips pretty much all week offshore and had nice fish on each trip. Inshore the bluefish are blitzing on rain bait and we are seeing the occasional school of bonito – still no sign on Albies – Hard to even focus on the inshore stuff right now when the BFT action is so good. Rain bait is everywhere and the stage is set for a great fall.”

Capt. David Azar from Live to Fish Charters checks in with another offshore report:
“Hi John, Headed offshore again last Friday with Dr. Ron Mizrahi and Nathan Azizo to troll up some more bluefin tuna, as always we were hoping to find them working on the surface to get a shot with the fly or jigs.  While we did troll up another 30 pound bluefin we had no luck finding them in any concentration.  While roaming around we did come upon a bonus in the form of large, dead leather-back turtle.  The unfortunate turtle may have been the victim of an errant boater, but the floating carcass created a natural chum slick and was a haven for dozens of mahi!  The mahi were keyed up and hit any lures we threw at them, and it proved an opportune time to throw a fly.  A simple white clouser did the trick and I managed to land 2 acrobatic youngsters, my first of that species on the fly.  They were by no means large specimens, but a first of species is always exciting.  I heard reports of some bigger mahi out there a few days ago so unless Hurricane Hannah keeps us off the water Dr. Ron and I will be heading out there again this Friday to look for tuna and/or mahi.  Hope I have something special to tell you next week…maybe bluefin on the fly, who knows?  On the local front there have been lots of large bluefish in the New York Bight eating flies.  Hopefully this will keep us busy until the albies show up…PLEASE!”

New York Fishing Reports
From the North Shore, Bob Giordano checks in with this report:
“Hey John, Labor day weekend was insane up here in Huntington Bay.  Besides the normal holiday craziness, Huntington Lighthouse had a festival complete with a band on top of the light and an Air Force show up above. On top of that throw in a few hundred sailboats taking advantage of the north wind. Looked like a lot of fun from my beach chair but glad I didn’t go out Sunday. Did make it out on Labor Day and found schoolie bass in the harbor willing to slam crease flies until the sun broke the tree line. Fast and furious but over as quick as it started. Went out to Lloyd and took a few blues with one decent one on a gurgler in shallow water. From what I here Bonito had disappeared last week but hopefully only briefly.”

From Montauk, Capt. David Blinken from North Flats Guiding says that Montauk is on!
“THE BLITZ IS HERE!!!! Clouds of bay anchovies have descended on Montauk. Bass and blues have been quick to take advantage of the forage with massive blitzes in mid season swing. Some blitzes extend from one end of the point to the other lasting not just minutes but hours. Alas, there are no albies but I’m sure after the tropical storm passes and the seas calm they will be waiting to abide. So come out and enjoy the resource and remember use it don’t abuse it. Note!: PLEASE PRACTICE SAFE BOATING. When fishing in a blitz its polite to back out when hooked up to avoid any unintentional contact. Blitzes are kayotic and the excitement can be distracting, also try not to run and gun into a blitz when there are many boats about, there are plenty of opportunities throughout the fishing day to get into a blitz. Please be mindful of the shore anglers if you are in a boat they are not as mobile.”

Also checking in from out east is Capt. Robin Calitri from Long Island Fly Fishing.  Check it out:
“Ya Shudda Been there TODAY! More on that later.  Dr. Seth Eichner and Captain Robin Calitri, of LongIslandFlyFishing.com had a beautiful evening on Thursday.  Seth is a renowned psychotherapist but novice fisherman.  He shows great promise at this new sport.  On 8/29 Stu Hochron and Jim DelGrosso boarded C Sic Again for a Montauk exploratory.  It was the beginning of the action for the fall.  Blues and Bass began their yearly boils and we took many of both.  Stu did a great job on the spinning while Jim and I used the fly.  It was almost ‘epic’. Labor Day found my wife Caren and me enjoying a beautiful morning on Northport Bay.  Small bass and blues cooperated for me while a good book entertained Caren.  I had another giant bass come up and attempt to eat a smaller bass that I had on the fly. Joel Weiss and Dana Thompson joined be for a quick after work trip on Tuesday evening.  I went out early and scouted but found the Sound like the Dead Sea.  Captain Ken Kuhner gave me a tip and we found wonderful, surface feeding blues off Stamford.  Great job and thanks to you Captain Ken, Joel and Dan ripped it up. Today.  Wednesday September 3, 2008 might have been the finest of all fishing days for Captain Robin Calitri, Captain Vinny Catelano and Jim DelGrosso.  We took C Sic Again out of Montauk and immediately hit bass and blues on the fly on the north side.  We played in these blitzes for an hour or so and then saw even more action to the east.  We caught bass to 32 inches and tons of 4-10 pounds blues until we got itchy.  So we went searching the South side for Albies.  We saw a few likely Albie type busts and then we hit  the mother load.  We took bass after bass with a few blues in between for the next 4 or 5 hours.  It was non-stop. Dixon, Ted Williams, Blinken and Reagan were up to their smiling ears in bass and blues.  Jim DelGrosso took a bass of about 13 pounds.  Skinny Vinny hit the 18 pound mark and  Capain Robin Calitri had a personal, fly best of 40 inches and 29 pounds.  Eventually we were so worn out that we just sat and watched the blitzes and boils which were so thick that the bass and blues were bouncing off the boat.  And Captain Paul Dixon in his new, trim 23 Sea Craft yelled to us. ‘Wait until Montauk gets really good!’” 

Connecticut Fishing Reports
From eastern Connecticut Capt. Sandy Noyes from Rumrunner charters checks in with this report:
“We got out a few times this week and were not disappointed. There are good numbers of bass around and still all the bluefish that you can stand. The butterfish are starting to thin out and are being replaced by silversides and some baby bunker. I ‘ve had good reports of bay anchovies starting to arrive also. We did see a few bonito this week but not enough to spend more than a short time looking for them.”

Also reporting from the same general area is Captain Mike Warecke from Southeastern Connecticut Fishing Charters:
“Connecticut has been pretty steady over the past couple of weeks. The blues are everywhere and this is a great time for kids and beginners to hit the water for some great fishing trips. The bass are starting to  show again. We have taken bass over the past week to 18 lbs and a few fish lost, even bigger. The hard tails as of now, are nowhere to be found. Some reports are coming in that farther east is starting to pick-up, so things should be improving. This up coming storm should kick things into high gear.” 

Wow!  On that note, I’m gonna sign off.  See ya on the water…

Capt. John McMurray
Northeast Fishing Correspondent