Race and Plum Gut load up on big migratory bass as bluefish crash the plug bite

We're coming off that full moon push from last week, and it showed. Spring tides ran hard through the Race and Plum Gut — I'm talking current that stacks eddies you could park a truck in, and it dragged bait against every ledge and rockpile from Orient out to Fishers. That kind of flow moves butterfish and squid through the rips in bulk, and the bass — real Hudson River fish, thick-shouldered, not the resident schoolies — piled onto it hard. Problem is the same push that stacks bait also stacks fog. Every morning last week it was pea soup running east out of Port Jeff, that classic July setup where warm land air sits on cold Sound water and you can't see the bow rail. Guys who pushed through it and got out to the Race by mid-morning caught up on lost time; guys who bailed early missed the tide.

This week we're sliding off that full moon into the waning quarter, and by Tuesday or Wednesday we'll be into neap tides — smaller swings, softer current. That matters more than people think. When the Race is ripping at four-plus knots on a big moon tide, bass hold tight to the current seams and eddies just to conserve energy, and you've got a short window to get baits in front of them before the flow blows everything through. Neap tide slows all that down. The fish spread out, they sit in open water off the drop-offs, and they'll actually feed through more of the tide cycle instead of just the last two hours like we saw last week. That changes my whole game plan — I'm fishing longer windows this week instead of racing the clock at max flood.

As for what's in the box: mixed, honestly. The bass showing at the Race and Plum Gut have been either short of slot or well over it — plenty of fish, not a lot of keepers. I ran into that myself off Plum Gut on the last two hours of the flood, worked a rip line in about 35 feet with bunker chunks on a fishfinder rig, and put four bass on the deck with two more dropped boatside. Every one of them was either under 28 or pushing 40-plus — no 30-inchers to be found, which tells me we're seeing two distinct year classes moving through together, not a clean slot bite. If you want a keeper, work the deeper structure off Fishers Island Sound in 40 to 50 feet where the bigger fish tend to sit off on their own, away from the pack of shorts stacked shallower.

Bluefish have shown up in real numbers, and they are not shy. They're eating glide baits and topwater whole — I lost a $30 plug to a blue at Plum Gut that just erased it on the retrieve. If you're throwing anything with hooks in the six-inch class or better, run a short piece of 40-pound fluorocarbon or light wire ahead of your leader, because these fish are cutting people off left and right. Best bite on blues has been first light and last light at slack water, working topwater — Hydro Pencils, X-Walks, anything that walks the surface — over the rockpiles off Orient Point and along the western edge of Fishers Island. When the current's ripping hard mid-tide, switch to a flutter spoon or a diamond jig and work it vertically through 30 to 40 feet; that's when the bass and blues are both stacked on bait suspended in the water column rather than up top.

Fluke have been a grind but not a bust. The flats off Orient Point in 12 to 18 feet are holding fish, mostly on the drift with white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, slow-dragged on the outgoing. Nothing over four pounds that I've heard of, but a limit of keepers is doable if you cover ground and don't marry one drift. Porgies are still reliable filler over structure — try the rockpiles inside Plum Gut on sandworms or clam on a high-low rig, especially on the last of the ebb when the current eases enough to hold bottom without a two-ounce sinker dragging you sideways.

Looking ahead, I'd plan around the fog, not against it. Push your morning departure back an hour or two until it burns off — you're not losing much, since the best window right now is that back half of the flood anyway, not sunrise. With neap tides settling in through midweek, I'd shift away from chasing the current edge and instead work slack water at Plum Gut with topwater for bass and blues both — that's where I expect the bite to spread out and hold longer instead of compressing into a two-hour window like last week. If the wind stays out of the southwest and light like it's been, the Race should stay fishable on both tides, and that's where I'd put my money for a bigger bass. Butterfish showing up this early is unusual and it's a good sign — if that bait stays put through the week, the migratory fish holding at the Race and Plum Gut aren't going anywhere soon.