Eastern Long Island Fishing Report- August 3, 2023

Eastern Long Island Fishing Report

• Shore-based cobia.
• Awesome tuna bite offshore.
• Sharking on bunker schools is insane.
• Bottom fishing was excellent this week.
• Big weakfish, stripers and blues on the full moon.

The Fishfinder of Captree reports: 

“The 5 pm to 9 pm fluke trips are catching solid keepers and shorts, along with the bluefish and weakfish. One angler took the pool earlier in the week with an 8 pound weakfish at night. Stripers have been solid at night too. The 10am trip yesterday saw some great fishing on the outside reef. Anglers reeled in keeper and short fluke, plus sea bass, scup and triggerfish. Pool fish were generally 5-6 pounds this week. Bonus catches included cod and mackerel.” Give them a call for trip info.

Bill at Chasing Tails Bait and Tackle in Oakdale reports:

“Fluke action is on fire in our local waters. Big flatties are plentiful and limits are easy, with tons of shorts in the mix to keep your rod bent all day. Shop rigs tipped with bait or artificial bait do the job. Bucktails, soft plastics, and artificial baits rigged on jigs are pulling impressive fish out of the deep. Sea Bass are out lurking on the reefs and wrecks too, slurping down clam rigs and smashing jigs. They love bright colors and slow pitch jigs, also diamond jigs and bucktails. Cobia are in consistent schools right near by. They hit topwater, bucktails, live eels, and live bunker. Bring your good gear, and hang on! These fish will take you for a ride, especially in their bigger sizes. Word is that a few lucky surfcasters have gotten onto some good ones too.    

Top water mornings and evenings are killer in the freshwater right now. Frogs, spooks, jitterbugs, and poppers are all getting smashed up by eager bass and pickerel. Work the bottom with Senkos, or jigs if you’re heading out mid day. Keep an eye out for any places the bass would hide in the heat. Bluegill, pumpkinseed, and yellow perch are all very active and easily caught with worm and bobber. Lots of fun for any age. Trout are still most active at dawn and dusk, when the bug hatches come out the heaviest. Terrestrials like beetles, spiders, and ants work great, and so do mayfly patterns. Hit ’em with the nymph rig when they’re done rising.”

Captain Stu Paterson of Northport Charters reports: 

“We’ve had a good bite going on this week on the fluke grounds, with a few species coming over the rail. Good fluke have been coming up, as have keeper weakfish, kingfish and porgies. Mia was our high hook on our recent trip, catching a five pound fluke.” Call/text Stu at 631-707-3266 or check out Stu’s website to book a trip: northportcharters.com.

• Looking for the Western L.I. and NYC Fishing Report? Click here to read what’s happening around Nassau, Kings and Queens counties!

• Want to get in on the bite? Find an OTW-approved Charter Fishing Captain on Long Island!

The Celtic Quest Fishing Fleet of Port Jefferson reports: 

“We picked scup, fluke, sea bass and blues off the bottom the past few days. The porgies are stacked, and even some big dogfish and sea robins are putting a smile on kids’ faces. The fishing over the weekend was just as good, with a fat slot striper coming over the rail alongside our usual catch.” Call them at 631-928-3926 for booking info, or check the website/Facebook for more info.

The Peconic Star 3 of Greenport reports:

“We’ve been seeing some awesome bottom fishing during this stretch of beautiful weather. On Monday, we got into some serious sea bass during the slack tide. We fished a wreck in about 150 feet, and the fish weighed up to 5 pounds. When the tide began moving, we ran to the BI Sound to get on the porgies. A few days earlier, we stayed shallow and targeted the bottom in 15-20 foot depths. We nailed the porgies, with a full boat limit, and took home a keeper fluke.

We’re running full day trips daily, from 7:30-3. The weekends have half-day options, from 7:30-12:30, targeting a mixed bag. For booking info, call Captain Paul.”

Capt. Phil of Fishy Business in Orient reports:

“Our past few weeks have seen plenty of action. Limits of big blues and sea bass have been coming over the rail. Fluke, porgies and stripers have filled the gaps between the tenacious bites. Overall, the fishing has been great. Captain Phil sails out of Duryea’s in Orient. Give him a call to book a trip!”

Rosie Fishing of Moriches Bay reports:

“The tuna bite offshore is amazing. Liam came out last night and we went 8 for 11 on yellowfin to 65 pounds. We also caught around 50 mahi on a tree floating out there. Liam took one yellowfin down almost entirely on his own: a 57 pounder! Good work. The fluke bite has been excellent lately. We’ve been picking fish to about 5.5 pounds this week. Keep an eye on our website for sailing times, reports, and trip openings. Give us a call for booking info!” 

Nick from Haskell’s Bait and Tackle in East Quogue reports:

“Inshore: the fluke fishing was excellent this weekend, with many keeper fish being picked at the east cut on the incoming. Some 8-10 pounders were caught using big 6-8 inch Gulp grubs in 80 feet of water near the reef. Black Sea bass and porgies are still biting just as well as they were last week. Spanish mackerel reports have begun trickling in from the jetty jocks and anglers fishing just outside the inlet.

Offshore: We’re finally hearing some decent reports from the coimbra, with big yellowfin taking the center stage. The bite seems to occur just east or south of the wreck. If you can find the bait, throw jigs and topwater in the area to get the bite. There’s also plenty of action out east, with blue and yellowfin reports coming from tuna ridge. Some mahi have shown up about 15-20 miles south of the inlet on the fish pots. Small bucktails and peanuts are doing the trick there.”

The Shinnecock Star in Hampton Bays reports:

“We had some of our best trips of the summer this past week, targeting the skinny water for keeper fluke. The better the fishing is, the less time we have to talk about it, so take this brief report as a sign to get on down to the dock! Some trips are outstanding, and some require patience on the tides and conditions… but all in all, we’re finding plenty of fish in the bay (and bait too). They’re sailing out of Oaklands Marina daily from 7am-2pm. Text or call Capt. John for info.”

Montauk’s Viking Fleet reports:

Yesterday afternoon’s bite lasted the whole trip. Sea bass, scup and fluke were bending rods regularly. Nice keepers came over the rail, with Jared Banyard’s taking the pool, at 5 pounds. The morning trip yielded a 6.5 pound fluke. The day trip saw as good a bite as we’ve seen, with fluke to 6 pounds, some nice sea bass, and some mackerel at the lighthouse.

The full moon trip on Tuesday wasn’t too hot, but we picked a bunch of bluefish, scup and sea bass. Our main target, striped bass, eluded us. The evening before, the bass were chewing better, with overs and unders hitting the deck; no keepers though. The bycatch was great though. The rest of Monday produced some great bottom fishing.

Sunday’s whale watching trip was outstanding. We saw dolphins everywhere, and whales near and far from the beach. The humpbacks we saw were juveniles, and they were putting on a bit of a show for us. Call the office to book, or book online.”

• Looking for the Western L.I. and NYC Fishing Report? Click here to read what’s happening around Nassau, Kings and Queens counties!

• Want to get in on the bite? Find an OTW-approved Charter Fishing Captain on Long Island!

Eastern Long Island Fishing Forecast

The bunker is settled in, and the fishing they’re providing is all-time. I talk about it every week, even when the bite’s not cookin’, but it’s that awesome. It’s the kind of “fishing” where you don’t even need to have a rod in your hand. 

I know each person perceives “fishing” differently from the next. Some go out to hook one fish, catch it, bleed it and cut it open, carve it up and eat it for the night; one will do that daily if possible, and if nature provides then he will keep a few different species/fish per day, calling it quits after catching the bare minimum he requires. Some release every fish that’s caught, unencumbered by the work required to clean; the act is purely pleasure, satisfying an urge to hunt/outsmart a living creature. Some do it specifically for the work of it; one will fillet and freeze forty porgy fillets, for one’s self or for many clients, and take home a paycheck to support his/her family. Deep down, we’re all there for the same reason. Fishing is adventure. We’re standing (or floating) on the edge of a vast wilderness, where who-knows-what is only a cast or drop away. 

I spent the first evening of this week watching the sky’s colors change, and tracking the dark spots of bunker moving from here to there on the blue seascape. I was hoping to see a whale.

A storm approached from the west. An awning protected me from its rain, which fell at different frequencies during the hours I observed it. The rainfall was music. The flux of color and weather was art, more beautiful than any human could replicate. I watched a still ocean, its surface undisturbed, save for the different textures created by wind touching down upon different spots. Eventually some dolphins passed by, adding their own strokes to nature’s paintbrush. My fishing rods weren’t nearby, and I had no electronics with which I could record this beauty. This will be a night which I will reflect on in the future. It’s rare I’m lacking a phone or camera, but those devices could not record what I felt during those few hours watching the ocean.

The next day I was back to the grind. I watched the stripers work the surf, and the sharks and blues work the bunker schools. I was lucky enough to watch a tuna attack a bunker school as well. The big schools of big blues seem to have moved on to a different region, yet there are some gators lurking in the bunker schools. I reckon some bass are getting in on the bunker action, as are some cobia in my area. I haven’t been fortunate enough to see any cobia, but I’m feeling good about catching one this month. I think that each year we will see more of these fish, and more of other species, so long as the prolific bunker population remains.

Speaking of which, Omega Protein is sending their boats on another 600-mile round trip from VA to NY to harvest bunker. Word from down the coast is that this company has pretty much obliterated the menhaden population in the Chesapeake Bay. This is at least their second trip this summer to NY waters to harvest bunker. It raises some serious red flags that Omega’s factory ships are traveling ridiculously long distances to harvest these fish, instead of harvesting them from the waters which they are self-proclaimed “sustainably fishing”.

You cannot beat the sharking right now. They’re almost all hanging out by the bunker schools near the beach. There are probably more than there have been in the last 50 years, and they pull real hard. I saw some epic shark battles this week. I’d like to partake in one soon.

The north wind cooled down the inshore waters pretty drastically this week. Compare the surf temps in the 60s to the offshore temps in the mid-70s. The daytime bass bite seemed to slow down significantly as a result. There were a ton of shad and bluefish to be caught in the surf though, as cut openings released a ton of small bait into the ocean. It’s been fun for a light tackle approach. Tomorrow, I intend to harvest cocktail blues to make a pineapple ceviche. Should be delicious.

I haven’t tapped into any fluke by me, but I’ve been hearing of some good ones getting caught off the rocks. I’ve also heard of some spanish mackerel being caught off the rocks; and I’ve seen mackerel doing work on the smaller schools of local bait. They put on a fun show. 

I saw one tuna yesterday, 150 yards from the beach, running through a school of bunker. There were 12 to 18 sharks in that same school. Again, it’s been wild in the bunker schools.

I think that with the north wind subsiding, we’ll settle into a hot water pattern. I expect to see more cobia reports. In no time, we’ll hear of tarpon getting caught in pound traps, and one or two lucky anglers will get lucky by seeing a school daisy chaining in the bays.

Lord knows what’s in store for us this week. Every year, the fishing gets a bit more ridiculous. Every year, more of the same “southern” species get caught, and new ones come to enjoy our waters.

I always look forward to being surprised by what shows up on this “final frontier.”

Get out there and get you some. Tight lines.