Hamptons Fishing Report: A Look Back at the Season

While the end is drawing near, it is always a good thing to look back to the 2011 season and see how it compared to last year or a few years ago.

I spoke to my good friend, Capt. Sloan, who operates the Black Rock out of Orient Point, and he was quite optimistic about the season. In fact, he said it was one of the best bites in the last five or six years.

“The fishing was exceptional this time around and we limited out on nine out of ten trips, especially when the quest was striped bass,” he said.

Personally, 90 percent was always a number I wanted to see on any evaluation, so it seems that the charter boat operations did well as we all wished for our local economy.

Capt. Sloan also told me that the boat had tons of big striped bass with a handful over fifty pounds. Their heaviest catch of the 2011 season was a 58-pound cow taken at night and released to continue the work of providing fish for our future and blending in with environmental concerns. He said that the bluefish bite was strong at the start of the season, slowed down a bit through the middle and got stronger again with the cooling waters and the dawn of fall. His clients drifted and grabbed big ferocious blues last week, keeping all on board happy.

Blackfish (tog)fishing this year has been incredibly dominant, a ”fantastic start with daily limits commonplace on every trip and a weight limit that always included a few to six-pounds,” Sloan said and added that he was surprised by the sheer amount of fish and bait in the water, making their daily excursions exceptionally good, as opposed to disappointing. 

 “This was one of the better seasons for market fish,” said Bob Howe, a local Hamptons fishermen who has been selling his daily catches to local businesses over the last few decades. “The bass and bluefish were huge and quite often, not that hard to find now that I come to think of it. But probably the nest species of fish I was able to catch this year was once again, the porgies. They keep getting bigger and bigger and most often, I caught my share of keepers in just a few hours when I hit the right spot.”

Any of my friends who worked to catch fish from boats or surf said that they were hardly ever disappointed this season. In truth, neither was I and although I did not get to fish as much as I wanted, each opportunity brought success. Fluke were fat and there were lots of doormats. Striped bass still rate as the number one most popular fish and porgies, blackfish and sea bass were prolific. It was indeed a good season for our East End economy Maybe next year be as good
or better.