This morning Gail and I took a quick trip to catch the tide. The first stop was barren so we moved on. Spot number two was more productive. We had had a couple of fish take our squid flies and shortly after that the sand eels came through. We switched to smaller stuff and picked a few more fish. Gail got one around eight lbs. for our biggest so far. The better ones should be in pretty soon. I’m guessing they will show on the full moon this week.

Gail and I took our first trip of the year this afternoon. Since this was a scouting trip we were using spin rods with the old reliable bucktail. The first spot looked promising but we came up empty. The next one had a few fish showing so we stopped and we each put a couple in the boat. We left them to continue scouting and I almost drove through a good sized school that were sipping sand eels on the surface. We stayed and played with them for awhile until the fog bank moved in. Most of the fish today were about two inches longer than when they left this past fall. A pretty nice start to the season.

We just got word today that Connecticut will let us begin charters starting tomorrow. We are expecting R.I. and NY. to do the same shortly. The reports that I have received are that there are quite a few bass in the rivers and along the coast. These guys put on a few pounds from last year and should be a lot of fun this year. I have about two more days till the boat goes in the water and then I’ll be able to check things out myself. I’ll keep you posted,

Usually about this time of year I write about my recent salmon fishing trip. However for the first time in 15 years we were cancelled because the border is closed. We still can’t do charters but I think that will change by the 1st of June. I’m going through my fly boxes to see what needs to be updated. My bucktails are all set and I’m going to get the lathe going and turn out some swimmers. The boat will get uncovered and with luck she will be floating by next weekend. I’ll keep you posted.

We made it through the winter in pretty good shape so far. The docks are being put in and we should get the boat in pretty soon. That’s the good news. From what I understand with the virus issues the Marina will be open and we can fish. The bad news is that we can’t do any charters for now. The last that I heard was maybe by the end of June but they are just guessing. As of today the bass and bunker have crossed the boarder and are making their way up the coast. The fishery managers finally listened and discovered that the bass and bunker are in rough shape so now we have a slot limit for bass and that is one fish from 28 in. to less than 35 in. That will be the same in all the states that we fish. also the recreation limit for bluefish is three with charter boats having a limit of five. We saw more bass last year than have been around in a long time. If they return to the same areas we should do pretty well. Keep checking here and it pass on any info that I get.

This morning an old friend brought Hope and Justin all the way from Colorado to catch some stripers. I think that it took Justin two casts to get the first one to the boat. We found quite a few schools of bass that were spread out and eating bay anchovies. This was as close to the old days of the fall runs as its been in some times. We had some doubles and a bunch of singles. A lot of you that have fished with me know about Gail’s phone calls. She called, a school blew up 30 feet away from us and Hope put a perfect cast on them for our final fish of the day. I am only going to have the boat in the water for another week and right now the weather looks pretty good for about five of those days. I’m looking at four hour days starting at sunrise.

We waited until yesterday to venture out to see what was left after the three day nor’easter. We found a sailboat on top of one of the Stonington Breakwaters another very large boat on it side up in the marsh and rocks. Along with several that had broken loose and were stranded on different shores. The winds were clocked up to 70 mph on the outer breakwater. We did find some bass and they did eat for us but it took a lot of trying. We saw albies and bonito both days and they looked like they are in a hurry to head somewhere else. There are lots of bass yet to come through as well as the late bonito run. If the bait drops out and we don’t get hit again it could still be a pretty good year.