This weeks stretch of good weather allowed me to run a couple of trips to Montauk searching for the elusive keeper Fluke.
Monday found Bruce, Steve, and young Brady join me for the first outing. Started at one of my favorite south side drops and on the second drift Bruce lands a nice 20” keeper to start us off. Steve managed to find a nice 18” keeper Sea Bass and then Bruce puts another similar Sea Bass in the box. Many more shorts of both species followed over the next hour before the tide and drift slowed up along with the bite.
So, we moved a bit further north and as the tide picked up so did the bite. First Bruce boxes another 20” Fluke then Steve’s rod doubles over and after a short but spirited battle he lands a nice 25” plus Fluke pushing the scales to almost 5.5#. As the balance of the day progressed, we had a steady pick of Fluke and Sea Bass with the occasional keeper finding the box during that time frame. Brady managed to catch the largest Fluke of the day, one just a bit larger than his dad’s fish. Plus, we found a good quantity of keeper Sea Bass in the mix as well. Final tally for the day was 6 keeper Fluke and 7 keeper Sea Bass, contributing to healthy bags of filet for their efforts.
Wednesday’s trip had my super experienced crew of Chef Nader, long time regular Matt, and other regular Bill join in for another stellar weather day on the ocean. So, based upon Monday’s results, I stopped at the more northern drop first and within a few drifts Bill puts the first 19.5” keeper Fluke in the box. A bunch more short Fluke and Sea Bass follow for the next hour until the tide dies as did the bite.
So, we mover further south and with a little boost from the tide the action resumes and we did manage to cull 3 more keeper Fluke to 21” from a ton of shorts. Lots of small Sea Bass as well but no keepers to this point on this trip which was kind of disappointing. Then the bite dies here so we head back north again and Bill lands another keeper Fluke of 21” pretty quickly so we are all encouraged. However, the balance of the day turned into a continuous stream of short Fluke and some small Sea Bass with just one keeper biscuit pulled by the Chef close to the end of the afternoon. Final tally yesterday only 5 keeper Fluke and 1 Sea Bass in the box. Just another testimonial to how difficult the Fluke fishing has been this year. Despite landing well over 75 Fluke the keeper ratio was really small. Friends I spoke with also out in the vicinity yesterday had even more meager results.
So, it looks like one of those “grind it out” types of years for our summer Fluke fishery. I have my “A Team” lined up for next Wednesday and we all hope the waters off Montauk will be willing to part with a lot more sizeable Fluke and Sea Bass. One thing is for sure; you can’t catch them from your couch, so we will persist in trying!
