Big Fluke And Big Game On The Fishing Menu

No summer doldrums around these parts, that’s for sure.

Fishing off Shinnecock and Montauk is chugging right along through the heat waves and cool fronts, the wind, the fog and the slicker beauts.

The focus of the inshore fishing now has shifted to the east and the waters off Block Island where a spectacular body of fluke has moved in over the last couple weeks. Limits and doormat-sized fluke have been the norm, from all the talk of it I have heard. Montauk’s charter fleet has been on the scene, if you were lucky enough to have booked a trip this month, and with the calm seas we’ve had of late it’s been easy access for even smaller boats.

The fluking off Shinnecock hasn’t been as red hot but there are definitely some big fish being landed by the boats drifting around the Shinnecock Reef. The reef is a cornucopia of mixed bag opportunity these days with porgies, black sea bass and trigger fish all congregating around the hunks of steel stacked up on the bottom.

If you are stuck on shore there is certainly plenty to keep you occupied, and well fed, also. Porgies are still biting eagerly around the Shinnecock Canal’s north jetties and off the jetties to Montauk Harbor or just about any shoreline with some rocks within casting distance.

There are also lots of schoolie stripers cruising the ocean surf and any place you can find deep running water near a bay shoreline.

It has been another spectacular year of ocean creatures feeding on the schools of bunker off the South Fork beaches. This year the bunker have brought some very aggressive new visitors, black tip sharks, in packs, and a fair number have been caught by surfcasters. While this is technically illegal, because all coastal sharks are protected and may not be targeted, it’s been a hard temptation to resist for a lot of fishermen watching the sharks tear through the bunker schools. No judgment here.

The offshore fishing is set up well for the dozens of sportfishing crews that will be participating in the 20th Hamptons Offshore Invitational big game tournament at Oakland’s Restaurant & Marina in Hampton Bays. The tournament is, as always, a benefit for Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Long Island so getting in on the raffles and auctions that can be joined online at bbbsli.org goes to a very worthy cause.

There are more than 40 boats fishing the tournament this year, with most of the top crews from Shinnecock and Montauk are participating so the winning crew will certainly have a pile of bragging rights. It seems almost certain that there will be tight competition for the biggest tuna prize, with something over 200 pounds likely to be the trophy winner.

The majority of the fleet was due to head offshore on overnight trips Monday morning and some big tunas were brought back to the docks by boats not in the tournament on Sunday so Tuesday evening should be a busy one at the scales.

Catch ’em up. See you out there.