Race rips fire as 67-degree water stacks bass on the flood

The eastern Sound finally hit that magic number this week — 67 degrees on the shelf — and everything changed overnight. Water that's been sitting cold and lifeless for weeks suddenly came alive, and the fish responded like someone flipped a switch.

I've been hammering The Race on the flood tide, working the deep water where the current screams through at 4 knots. The setup is perfect: 67-degree water meeting the rip, bait getting compressed in the turbulence, and bass stacked up feeding. I'm fishing three-way rigs with 6-ounce sinkers to hold bottom in 100-plus feet, running 4-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 1-ounce bucktails about 3 feet off the bottom. The key is letting the current work the bait — no jigging, just let it swing in the flow.

The bass are quality fish, mostly 28 to 35 inches with some real gorillas mixed in. Had one morning this week where I boated seven fish in three hours, kept one slot bass and released six overs. The bite turns on hard when the tide really starts pushing — about an hour into the flood when the rip stands up and gets nasty.

But here's the twist: big bluefish are crashing the party. I'm talking true gorilla blues, 15-pound-plus fish that fight like they're twice that size. Lost three bucktails in one drift to these bastards before I wised up and switched to wire leaders. They're mixed right in with the bass, so you never know what's going to grab your bait until it's halfway to the boat.

Plum Gut has been more consistent but less spectacular. The ebb tide is producing steady action on the same three-way setup, but the fish are smaller — mostly slot bass in the 28 to 30-inch range. The beauty of the Gut is you can fish it when The Race gets too evil. When that rip is standing 6 feet tall and boats are getting tossed around like toys, Plum Gut gives you fishable water with decent current.

The blackfish bite is heating up around Fishers Island, especially on the west side drops in 20 to 55 feet. Green crabs on jigs are producing steady keeper action, with fish running 16 to 19 inches. The flood tide has been the ticket — get there early and anchor up before the current gets too strong. I'm seeing limits of solid keepers getting boxed, nothing huge but good eating fish.

What's driving all this action is the thermal structure. We've got 67-degree water on the shelf meeting cooler 62-degree water from Block Island, creating a feeding zone that's stacking bait and concentrating fish. The southwest wind pattern we've been locked into is pushing warmer bay water — 74 degrees in the back bays — out through the inlets, creating temperature breaks that bass love to hunt.

The moon phase is working in our favor too. We're coming off the new moon, so the spring tides are flushing bait out of the back waters and concentrating it in the rips and channels. That's why The Race and Plum Gut are producing while other spots stay quiet.

Looking ahead, this southwest wind pattern should hold through the weekend, keeping the thermal structure intact. The full moon hits Friday, which means even bigger tides and more bait movement. I'm watching for the first real push of weakfish — water temps are right, bait is thick, and the moon phase is perfect. If they show up, it'll be at the usual spots: the deep holes in the Sound where the current slacks off and the water stays clean.

The key right now is fishing the tide changes hard. Don't waste time during slack water — get to your spot an hour before the tide turns and fish through the peak flow. That's when everything happens in this water.