Watch Hill to Race Point 9/29

Fisher's Island NY
9/29/2011

Thursday 9/29
A day late (or hour) and a dollar short! Kinda sums up my trip Thursday. One of the downsides of chartering is that sometimes you just have to roll the dice with dates. Can't say that we came up snake eyes, but I have fished better days. Fished with my "baby" brother Doug (in video) and Capt. Steve on the Lauren B., a veteran of these waters who will go above and beyond to try and put you on fish. We started out at Watch Hill at 6:30 in heavy fog, encountering some leftover messy swells and no signs of fish. We worked in to Sugar Reef and Wiccopesset Passage. Nada. Visibility was no more than a few hundred feet. Rather than bounce around blind, we decided to work the north side of Fishers Island so at least we would be sheltered. We worked the ENTIRE side of Fishers all the way to Race Point, picking up a few blues and getting a few bass to hit. Nothing big. Decided to stop back by Napatree and Watch Hill before heading in. Weather was clearing and the tide was beginning to go slack, but the albies were in. A guy was hooked up on a fly outfit and a second boat was hooked up as well. I missed a strike and the school was gone. Another popped up a few hundred yards away and was moving towards us. The boat next to us doubled up and then I hooked into a fish. It took two hard runs zigzagging away, and then a hard turn to the boat. I lost the fish. The tide seemed to go completely slack, and that was it. We moved over to Watch Hill where lots of birds were chasing numerous schools, but the fish weren't really hitting. I hooked and lost a second, and that was it. We were an hour past our charter time and had to head back. I'm pretty sure the boats out there would killed them as the tide picked up again.

Sunday 10/2
Went out in the little Gemma Rose hoping to catch some albies and worked from Goshen Point down to Brothers. No albies, just schools of small blues here and there, but still lots of fun.