Fishing the Other Side of the Sound for the First Time this Year

We sailed on Sunday morning with Pete Duarte of Ft. Lauderdale, FL--and his sons: Michael of Norwalk, Paul of Stamford, and Jeff of Irvington NY. We fished for more than an hour with no results, but after moving toward Westport we found some nice-sized striped bass--up to 25"--scattered along the shoreline. We also hooked into one small blackfish that surprised us by hitting a bucktail lure/sandworm combo. He was probably more surprised than we were, and he was immediately released, unharmed. On Thursday--with wind and rain as our companions--one of our regulars, Robert Remin of Westchester NY, brought along his young daughter Elena--who always enjoys fishing with her dad. The weather was less than ideal, but we found half a dozen striped bass around the Norwalk Islands; all the fish were released. Friday's trip was with Chris Meehan of Newtown and Dean Heinrich of Monroe. Although it was a bit warmer than the day before, and we had no rain to deal with, the winds were quite high, but we got a few bass around the Norwalk Islands, after which we made our way to Westport, where there was a nice, steady pick of quality stripers up to 28.5". All the fish were released after having their pictures taken. We left the dock early on Saturday morning--with Paul Thompson and Neil Boyd of New Canaan and Alan Demears of Norwalk. We first worked the Norwalk Islands and brought in half a dozen schoolie bass. Then we made our away across the Sound, stopping at the O.B., where we jigged up some more stripers in the 23-24" range. We next moved closer to the Long Island side and caught our first bluefish of the season--six--weighing 3-5 pounds, plus another bass on a jig and a 19" fluke, that was released. All the fish were caught on light tackle.