On Thursday we had a mid-day trip with Virginia Kamsky of Wilson Point and NYC; she's a "My Bonnie" regular with her young son, Michael, who's becoming quite a fisherman. Michael brought along his friend Matt McCalpin of Wilton. It was a fine day, with a nice catch of bluefish caught on the surface and some respectable striped bass hooked on tube and worm.
Saturday's trip was quite frustrating. Although we were scheduled to sail at 8:00am, many obstacles kept us from getting out to the fishing grounds where the action was hot and heavy--with the primary problem being that one of the parties did not arrive at our dock until almost 11:00am. However, with a lot of last-minute juggling of our original planned itinerary for the morning, we did manage to bring in 12 striped bass up to 27" and a few blues who hit our lines despite the heat of the mid-day sun and a lot of boat traffic in the area.
Sunday was another sunny and hot day, with Jim Tierney of New Canaan returning to "My Bonnie" with his father, James Sr.—a New Jersey resident—and Jim's 9-year-old twin sons. The morning started with a bang—just off of Copp's, where we found bluefish finning on the surface; many 5-6 pounders were plugged up at that spot, with the use of Creek Chub and other top-water lures. When we moved to 28C we chunked up larger blues up to 12 pounds.
On Monday we hosted Scott Friedman and Brian Jascowski, both of Westport; it was their first trip with us. The bluefish were on the top again at Copps, and they brought in more than a dozen in the 5-10 pound range. The morning was topped off with a catch of nice bass near Copp's and the Great Reef.
Tuesday we sailed with Al Nanai of Stamford and his 8-year-old grandson, Tyler Fagler of Tampa. Temperatures were close to 100 degrees on the Sound, but our passengers caught large bluefish up to 11 pounds, all on poppers, as well as some stripers up to 23". This was Tyler's first experience catching fish of this size, and he was overjoyed with his accomplishments. Al e-mailed us the next day to tell us that Tyler said "This was one of the 10 best days of my life!"
Well, the dog days of summer are upon us, and everyone here is having a hard time dealing with the super-hot weather; hopefully, it won't negatively affect the fishing. We'll see what happens when a cool front comes through later in the week.