Scales and Tales

The Freeport Tuna Club and Northeast NFSS are co-hosting a Shark Seminar on Thursday, May 8, from 7:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m., at the Cure of Ars Church, 2323 Merrick Avenue, Merrick, NY. Captain Lawrence Festa will be the featured speaker, covering all aspects of shark fishing with a special emphasis on strategies specific to Long Island. A question and answer session will follow the seminar. The night will cost you $20, payable at the door. Admission includes a barbecue and soft drinks, plus door prizes. For more information, visit www.ftcfishing.com.

Don’t let the cool and windy weather of the past few days get you down. Instead, think of it as a reset button for the start of fishing season. If you weren’t able to get in on the early catches of stripers and blues that chased bunker schools deep into Raritan, Jamaica, Great South and Peconic bays over the past two weeks, you might get a shot as the waters heat up again. Catches should also rebound inside Manhasset and Hempstead bays, and in the tidal creeks of Shinnecock Bay. Be ready.

The damp weather also slowed freshwater efforts over the past week, but anglers will get a second chance on this front as well. Trout, crappie, yellow perch and white perch are all very active as water temperatures rise from 55 degrees up into the low 60-degree range. Those are water temperatures you’ll likely see over the next ten days. For the trout, small gold spoons, size 01 Mepps or Blue Fox Vibrex spinners, and 1/32-ounce KastMasters are productive offerings. For the crappie and perch, two-inch segments of night crawler or small white grubs work well.

Nasty weather or not, there is always some good fishing to be found if you look hard enough. Thursday saw the large herd of Peconic Bay blues off New Suffolk and Cutchogue slide deeper into the bay. Lucky anglers working the area caught six- to ten-pound choppers until arm weary. The Route105 Bridge was the hot spot on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning. Anglers also scored with big blues off Flanders, Jamesport, and from the beach at Indian Island County Park. Poppers, tins and swimming plugs all accounted for fish, as did live bunker and bunker chunks.

Too bad blackfish season had to come to an end on April 30. The City Island open boat, Island Current, and the Captain James Joseph, Huntington, as well as the Montauk charter fleet, all left them biting. It was a good spring for blackfish in terms of size, with quite a few bulldogs in the 8- to 10-pound class reported. The Island Current (www.islandcurrent.com) is now targeting stripers and blues in the evening, flounders in the morning. The James Joseph (www.jamesjosephfishing.com) will be sailing full day trips for flounder.

Last year saw some monster weakfish caught in Raritan Bay and Jamaica Bay. Most of the weaks, some weighing between 15 and 19 pounds, fell to live bunker or bunker chunks intended for stripers and blues. The action has begun again this year with weakfish of 14 and 16 pounds already reported. It makes me wonder how well anglers might score if they specifically target the weaks with large red, purple or white jelly worms? With the size of the fish weighed-in last year, it is very possible a new world record is cruising beneath the west end bunker schools this spring.

In Friday’s column about cod fishing aboard the Montauk charter boat, Bluefin IV (www.bluefiniv.com,) I noted that persistence pays off when it comes to finding the action. Once the cod are located, however, you must still convince them to bite. The following tips from Captain Michael Potts should help:

● “I like a high-low rig for cod. Load up the bottom hook with a soft piece of clam. Place a smaller, hard piece on the top hook. Bergalls peck at the bottom choice most of the time and the big, soft bait should appease them. The top hook catches more cod. Bait it with a rim section of clam. Double the hook through the tough meat, leaving a little stringy trailer hanging free from the exposed barb.”

● “Light pecks usually indicate bergalls – fish through them. Big cod offer a more solid bite. If you think a cod is mouthing the bait, lift up slightly to load the rod. Set the hook only if you feel substantial weight.”

● “When cod chase herring or sand eels, diamond jigs can work well. Rather than yo-yo a jig straight up and down, cast away from the boat, allow it settle to the bottom, and then retrieve slowly. The jig should parallel the sea floor as you retrieve. This keeps it in the strike zone longer. I like day-glow orange tails on my diamond jigs.”

● “If dogfish are a nuisance, remove the skirts from your hooks. Colorful skirts and teasers increase the number of bites, but dogfish seem attracted to them even more than cod.”

● “If you aren’t sure how to rig up or entice codfish, blackfish, stripers, fluke, or just about any other local species of fish, take a few charter trips and learn how to do it right. A couple of trips with a good skipper can save you years of frustrating trial and error.”

TROUT WATCH
I stopped by Upper Lake in Yaphank at lunchtime on Tuesday. There I found Louie Morales and Joe Fornabaio scoring well with a mix of chunky rainbow and brown trout up to 12 inches.

“I was here yesterday using night crawlers and caught nothing,” revealed Morales. “Today, I’m using wax worms and the fish are biting much better. The wax worms work really well - but you’ve got to put them on a tiny, size eight, beak-style hook.”

West Lake in Patchogue, Sayville Mill Pond, Argyle Lake in Babylon and North Twin Lake in Wantagh have also offered solid trout action with the wax worms out-producing night crawlers and spinners at each location.

Anglers casting the long wand at Connetqout River State Park Preserve, in Oakdale, continue to pick away at ‘bows and brookies. Black Woolly Buggers have been the most productive pattern with catches best on the upper beats.

With a warming trend forecast for the remainder of the week, expect surface hatches to develop on local lakes and ponds. Blue Dunn dry flies produce when that happens on calm days toward the end of April and into early May. Size 16 white Variants (early morning to match hatches of Miller flies) and green-crystal Caddis Larvae patterns are also smart selections, according to Warren Ray at Parkwood Outfitters in Bohemia (www.parkwoodoutfitters.com). Ray has used the latter pattern to score consistently in recent days at Belmont Lake and Southards Pond.

PANFISH BITE SET TO BEGIN
Panfish fans should find bluegills and assorted sunfish sliding into the shallows over the next few days. Sunny coves and southern shores are where the action builds first on most lakes and ponds. Wax worms, meal worms and two-inch segments of night crawler, positioned 14 – 16 inches beneath a float, are traditional early season offerings.

On Tuesday, I spied a mourning cloak butterfly laying eggs on a willow branch at Swan Pond in Calverton. This is a large, brown butterfly with gold trim along the edges of its wings. The undersides of the wings sport a wood chip pattern while the top is dark-chocolate brown with rich, purple spots.

These butterflies hibernate through the winter months and reemerge just as the crappie bite begins to build. If you know of any crappie honey-holes (no pun intended,) now is the time to check them out.

Locally, Forge Pond in Riverhead, Artist Lake in Middle Island and the Twin Ponds in Wantagh, are crappie fishing hot spots – but some freshwater diehards prefer to trek upstate to Croton and Swinging Bridge reservoirs. A free New York City Public Access Permit is required to fish these reservoirs (http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/31426.html).

Welcome to Scales and Tales, Newsday’s Outdoors Blog. I’ll be using this space to bring you extra tips, thoughts and breaking news each week. Mostly, you’ll find here interesting tidbits, insights and asides that just didn’t fit into the Outdoors column. Check back frequently because I’ll be updating the blog several times each week.

- Tom Schlichter

FLOUNDER TIPS FROM THE PROS

No doubt the warming weather will soon start to take the chill out of the winter flounder bite. If you are thinking about heading out over the next few weeks, consider these simple tips from a trio of Long Island’s better flounder skippers:

● Ken Tokar, The Angler, Howard Beach: “The keys to catching flounder right now are to chum heavily and use mussel or sandworm baits. Jiggle your bait while keeping it tight to the bottom – with the water still cold the fish are timid and need a little movement in the bait to peak their curiosity.

● Joe Vanderveldt, Jib VI, Captree: “Fish the ebb through the month of April for Great South Bay flounder. Switch over to the flood as May gets underway.”

● Mike Barnett, Codfather, Freeport: “Bring along more than one kind of bait. So far this season, the bite has been unsettled. One day the flatties want only sandworm, the next day they want clams. On Wednesday, I had them all on mussels.”

BLACKFISH STILL AVAILABLE

(Michael Potts, skipper of the Montauk charter boat, Bluefin IV, shows off a 9.5-pound blackfish that ate a hermit crab for angler Paul Davis, southeast of Block Island. CREDIT: Tom Schlichter)

While most anglers have been trying to stir up flounder, a couple of boats looking for blackfish have scored pretty well.

Fred Russo, captain of the Moriches open boat, Rosie, noted he’s still catching blackfish to 13 pounds in 70 to 90 feet of water. The key to catching the biggest ‘tog has been to use white crabs - which Russo has on board for bait when he heads offshore.

Mike Barnett of the Freeport charter boat, Codfather, said he has also had a few big blackfish, along with a few cod and ling in 60 to 100 feet of water outside Jones Inlet.

A few big blackfish have also mixed in with Montauk codfish on the more sticky pieces south and southeast of Block Island. If you are heading out that way, it might be a good idea to bring along some green crabs or hermit crabs if you can get them.

STRIPERS STARTING TO SHOW
When Dave Paras, captain of the Sheepshead Bay open boat, Capt. Dave, answered the phone on Wednesday evening, I clearly heard the words “Fish On!” in the background. That’s because Paras has begun sailing evening trips for striped bass. So far, his fares have been playing catch and release with a decent number of schoolies falling to sandworm baits. Best of the action has been slightly west of Canarsie Pier, and in Runway Channel.

Striper season opened on April 15th, but with the water still cool, the action on bunker chunks has yet to catch fire. Scattered reports are beginning to filter in from Little Neck Bay, on the flats of Oyster Bay, and up in the tidal creeks of Shinnecock Bay. It should take only a few days of 60-degree weather to kick the bass season into gear.

Award-winning author and photographer Tom Schlichter's by-line has appeared in a wide array of prestigious outdoors magazines including Offshore, Salt Water Sportsman, Sports Afield and Boating. His most recent book, "Long Island's Best Freshwater Fishing," is available at local tackle shops, and online at www.outdoortom.com.

Through his writing, photography, and seminars, "Outdoor Tom" continues to introduce both young and old to the beauty, mysteries and pleasures of the great outdoors. He lives on eastern Long Island, where he enjoys spending time with family while covering topics ranging from fresh water and saltwater fishing to hunting and conservation.