Sand eels and stripers: the rips settle into their summer rhythm off the Point

Last week the tide was still shaking off the new moon hangover. We had that dead-flat, scattered-fish stretch where everybody was marking bait but nobody was marking bass in the same spot twice — classic post-new-moon dispersal, current too soft to hold anything tight to structure. Water was still holding in the low-to-mid 60s, cooler than what they're seeing on the south shore and way behind the mid-70s water pushing up from the Chesapeake, which tells you everything about why the biggest fish keep sliding east. Montauk isn't warm yet. It's just warm enough, and that's exactly the sweet spot that's been drawing 40-inch-plus bass off the western Sound and stacking them here.

This week the moon's swinging toward last quarter around the 6th or 7th, which means the tides are easing off the big pushes we had around the full moon at month's end. That's good news, not bad. Neap tides slow the current in the rips off the Point, and when the current slows, bass stop holding tight in the fast lane and start settling into the eddies behind the boulders — North Bar, the wash below the Lighthouse, the inside edge of Shagwong Reef. That's where I'd spend a tide this week, not out in the ripping middle of the current where you need lead to just find bottom. Wind's been out of the southwest most afternoons, which chops up the surface but doesn't kill the bite — if anything it pushes bait tight to the boulder fields and gives the bass cover to ambush from below.

The good news is the dispersal from two weeks back has resolved itself. Sand eels are thick off the Point right now, with squid mixed in on the drift, and that one-two combination is exactly what's been holding bass on the rips instead of pushing them through. Diamond jigs — half-ounce and one-ounce, silver or chartreuse tube teasers trailing behind — have been steady on the North Bar drift during the first two hours of the outgoing, worked with a slow flutter rather than a straight yo-yo. Bucktails, the white or olive 2-ounce bucktail with a five-inch white Bass Assassin trailer, have been doing damage for the guys willing to cast into the wash right at the base of the Lighthouse rocks on the last hour of the incoming — that's when the current stacks bait against the rocks and the bigger fish come up out of the depth to feed.

After dark is still the money window for the real cows. Eel fishing off the Point after sunset has produced 40-pound-class bass consistently through the back half of June, and there's no reason that changes this week with the tide easing into neap. A whole live eel, unweighted or with just a small egg sinker pegged above a swivel, fished on the drift through the boulder field off the Lighthouse on the incoming — that's the program. It's not fast fishing. You might get one bite in a two-hour drift. But when it comes, it's the fish you tell people about for the rest of the season.

Cocktail blues, one to two pounds, have shown up in decent numbers on top over the reefs at first light, which is a good sign for the fall — young fish means bait's healthy and the class is coming through strong. They'll hit anything shiny worked fast — a Kastmaster or a small diamond jig snapped through the surface — and they're a fun way to fill a slow hour while you wait for the tide to turn on the bass.

Fluke has been the real surprise this stretch. The bite east of the Lighthouse, out toward Fort Pond Bay side and the deeper water off the river mouth, has been picking up as sand eels pull fluke shallower than they usually sit this time of year. Four-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, dragged slow on the drift in 25 to 35 feet, have been putting keeper fluke in the box, with a few pushing toward four and five pounds mixed in with the shorts. It's not a slam-dunk trip — you're covering water and culling through some undersized fish — but the ratio's been good enough to make it worth a tank of gas, especially with the holiday crowd thinning out the bass boats and giving you room to work a drift properly.

Porgies are around Shagwong Reef but they're bunched up, not blanketing the bottom like some years. Bring clam and expect to have to move a couple times to find the pod, rather than anchoring once and filling a bucket. There's chatter about the overpopulation of slot-and-up bass eating into the bycatch that porgies usually feed alongside — sea robins, small blackfish, that kind of thing — and whether that's thinning the porgy numbers. I don't know if that theory holds water, but the porgy fishing this June was patchier than it should've been, and it's worth watching.

Looking ahead: if the wind lays down over the holiday weekend and the neap tide holds the current soft in the rips, I'd fish the last two hours of the incoming at the Lighthouse with eels after dark, and I'd have the bucktail rod rigged for first light on North Bar as a backup. If that doesn't produce, I'm pointing the boat east toward the fluke grounds off the river — the sand eels are there, the fluke are following them, and right now that's about as sure a bet as this Point offers. Either way, water's warming, bait's here, and the big females that pushed east all June haven't left. That's worth getting up early for.