August in the northeast runs the range of emotion. Some talk of the summer doldrums in the shallows, while others cheer the potential for fantastic blue water action. Bottom fishing for the summertime faves of fluke, black sea bass and porgies take a front seat for many. I look forward to August for the potential variety of which we can jam into a single outing as about everything is on the table from tuna to tautog, and striped bass to shark.
I’ll start this installment with some offshore talk because as of the time I write this, it’s perhaps the slowest game in town.
I was down in Key West back at the beginning of June for a writer’s event with the good folks from Pure Fishing. We were testing out some new products they had in the works with official debuts scheduled for ICAST 2024. We got to play with some new Fathom electric reels and the new Battle IV from PENN, as well as some new rods to match. As this was my first trip to Key West, I was equally excited about the prospect of new species to add to my lifetime catch list as I was testing out the new gear, and I was not disappointed. I won’t bore you with all the details of the trip, but what I will discuss is the water. If I remember correctly, the average offshore water temperatures were in the low 90s, with inshore numbers a bit higher! This was, as I was told repeatedly by locals, a good 10-plus-degrees warmer than normal, and the warmest ocean water I ever remember experiencing. While the locals talked about the fear of what it could do during the impending hurricane season, I couldn’t help but wonder what it might do to our northern offshore fishery. I had dreams of warm water riding north up the coast, with eddies breaking off for the coast, bringing with them pockets of opportunity for us near-offshore fiends. What I didn’t expect to happen was that it might have played a part in the poor nearshore action that’s been seen of late off Southern New England.
The day before I sat down to type out this forecast on my computer, I made a stop at J&B Tackle in Niantic, CT. I needed to grab some 5-inch Gulp Grubs for a shore-bound fluke outing I had planned with my son, and when I saw Kyle Douton was in the shop, I made it a point to say hi and talk fishing. After talking about ICAST rumors and rumblings, our conversation went to the offshore scene where he lamented the green water blues for anyone not willing or able to run to the canyons. He noted that while the canyons are producing plenty of action, the usual south of Block bite had been tough in recent days. The Tails and the Ranger have had bluefin and yellowfin, but that green water I noted a moment ago is not good and made fishing difficult. As Kyle explained it, the prevailing southwest winds we saw in late June and early July flipped the water and pushed the nutrient-rich stuff up top. This mixed with warm – dare I say hot air – and caused a major algae bloom. The water went green, and the fish went elsewhere. He did say that it won’t take a lot to clean things up, a good switch to the wind and things will right themselves, but as I type this, I am looking at 90-plus-degree days in the entire 7-day forecast with more of that darn southwest wind!
Sticking with the pelagics of sorts, next, we’ll look to the inshore speedsters which include false albacore, bonito, chub mackerel and even Spanish mackerel. As August progresses, we should hear of and see more of these fish popping up in local waters. They start up in Massachusetts waters at the Vineyard before moving west and south sort of all at once (I heard of a small pod of bonito off Point Judith way back in June!) Usually, it’s the tuna guys I hear of getting them on trolling gear as unwanted bycatch before we see them inshore as a target species. Once here, I always say the first fish to arrive are kind of dumb, but the better description might just be more willing. By this, I mean that when they first arrive, it seems like they’re willing to strike anything from a speed jig meant for black sea bass to a 3-ounce pencil popper worked near a bluefish school. The longer the fish linger, and as more anglers start flinging every manner of lure at them, they seem to get pickier and pickier. If there’s something to be learned here, it’s that funny fish – especially albies and bonito – might better be targeted earlier than you will otherwise expect to do so if you want to lower the frustration level. I’d much rather look for them and not see them for two or three trips and then finally hook up than spend a full day’s trip casting at acres upon across of boiling fish without a single bend in my rod to show for it!
Once you do find some fish, how do you convert sightings into singing drags? Well, I am far from a funny fish aficionado, but I have caught just enough of them over the years to kind of, sort of, know what I am doing. I start with a 7-foot medium-light spinning rod matched to a reel with a quality drag, and spool it with 10- to 20-pound braided line. I attach a fluorocarbon with an FG knot in ranges from 10- to 30-pound test. Some days I tie directly, others I use the smallest Tactical Anglers clip, and the flavor of the day is usually affected more by my mood than actual success. My albie arsenal (which also includes all the other species) is comprised of epoxy-type jigs (my favorites include JoeBaggs Resin and Peanut jigs, Tsunami Forktail Candy jigs and Game On Exo jigs) and small soft plastics (Albie Snax and Zoom flukes are tough to beat!) Rig the soft plastics on both small jig heads as well as weightless on an EWG (extra wide gap) worm-style hook. With these two styles of lures, you can cover almost any situation you’re likely to encounter.
One trick I have learned over the years is that when the fish are extremely fussy, something like a Tsunami Soft Bait Split Tail Minnow can elicit a strike. I always have several packs of the 4-inch size in my summer kit, with glass minnow fleck being my favorite color. They have not saved every trip, but they have done so on enough outings to warrant some attention.