That’s the current story at Block Island during this oppressive heat wave that’s hit the region.
Every rock pile, mound, and ledge has five to eight pound yellow eyes willing to steal your bait. If you’re an eel fishermen, it can get expensive. Frustrating too! How frustrating is it? They never seem to get to the hook for an angler to at least enjoy a fight. What is left is just the head and a look of dismay on ones face. To makes matters worse, an eel with wrap itself around the mono leader from time to time. You get nothing back but a frayed line. More donations!
Striper fishing has really slowed. It could rebound with a few cooler nights. Surface temperatures around the island have reached the 70 degree mark. That explains the influx of bluefish. We tried fishing several hours before sunrise for some stripers with no luck. Nothing but blues again.
The summer is rapidly slipping by. Sunrises are now after 6:00am.
Sand eels continue to be a mystery. Two weeks ago they had the island surrounded by the millions. They have more or less disappeared since the electrical storm activity. Bonito sightings are down. That correlates to the lack of smaller bait around. Sea bass and scup fishing are at their peak right now. We caught a good size sea bass on an eel, believe it or not?
Nino Cambareri and friend Joe vacationed in Newport this week with some family. They were able to get away for a mornings outing at the Block. Nino has a passion for being outdoors. He works a full week outside. Beside that his others interest are boating/fishing and hunting. It seems that the only time he’s inside, is to sleep.
Joe, on the other hand loves golf. When it comes to fishing he’s a novice. Blame Nino for Joe to catch the bug. Joe now knows what the phrase, “striking while the iron is hot means.”
While Nino is enjoying a good fight, Joe is left with line management problems. It’s very frustrating Joe, but we have all gone thru it. It’s part of the learning curve. They caught a combination of striper, bluefish, sea bass, and scup.
Nino proudly holds a nice middle weight Block Island striper.
Phil Philbin with friend Lou and families have been vacationing in the area of Scarborough this week. What a great beach week for the family. Unfortunately, the warm steamy weather has impacted fishing. We headed out toward the island an hour and a half before sunrise. We were determined to increase the window of opportunity during the slow summer months of fishing. Unfortunely it didn’t help us catch any stripers. We were overrun by bluefish everywhere we drifted. We circled the island is search for linesiders, but none could be found.