Money Fish

The annual WICC Greatest Bluefish Tournament on Earth is less than a month away. Though I've never entered before (not owning a boat doesn't help), I have daydreamed about getting the $25,000 payday for reeling in a gorilla bluefish. The last four tournaments have seen winning fish weighing between 17 and 17.88-pounds. Those are serious choppers. The western Sound is usually in the running for the tournament winner and chunking with fresh bunker in deep water is a good way to connect with a contender this time of year. That's exactly what a friend and I did one night this week after a few days of stiff wind finally subsided. We had only two hits all night that resulted in one break off and one hell of a fish landed--a monster blue that pulled down my Boga comfortably past the 16-pound mark. A few more weeks of gorging on adult menhaden and that's probably a money fish in this year's tournament. After an incredible fight, I released it back in 60 feet of water somewhere in western Long Island Sound. Go get that $25,000 fish!

Late Season Stripes

I recently had the pleasure of fishing with Captain Chris Elser, a big bass specialist with over 40 years experience in the western Sound. We launched right at the start of the outgoing tide during a morning window between rain storms. There was zero wind; perfect conditions for the fly rod. Not far from the launch we spotted birds working a patch of water where schoolie stripers were crashing on small baitfish. The fish finder was lit up for the next hour. White flatwings fooled several stripers under two-feet in length and one of keeper size was lost right at the boat. We tried culling out some bigger fish with large soft plastic baits and top-water plugs, but nobody was home. I had a bite taken out of a 14-inch pink Hogy so there's at least one bluefish still hanging around. It was a fun few hours to say the least and it felt great connecting with bass on the fly again. It's not quite over out there yet and don't rule out a late push of migratory stripers gorging on sea herring before ice season kicks in.