Porgies stack up off Orient as bass scatter with the bait on the North Fork
Plum Gut's still turning fish but you've got to work the tide right — here's where the porgies, blues, and stray keeper bass are sitting this week.
We came off that full moon at the end of June with some serious water moving through the Gut — the kind of tide that scours bottom and pushes bait around whether it wants to go or not. That's mostly behind us now. We're sliding into the last quarter over the next few days, which means the moon's losing its grip on the tide a little each day. Ranges come down, current slows in the rips, and the fish that were holding tight to the fast water at Plum Gut and off Orient Point start spreading out into the eddies to feed instead of just hanging on for dear life. That's the shift I'm watching for this week — less brute-force current, more fish willing to sit and work a piece of structure.
Water's been stable and comfortable, none of that cold-water hangover we sometimes get into July. Wind's been the bigger factor than temperature — we had a stretch of sloppy southwest breeze that turned the surf line off Rocky Point into chocolate milk for a couple days, and that always shuts down the sight-feeders like bass working the sod banks. It's cleaned back up. Going into this weekend I'm not seeing anything nasty on the horizon — a light southerly most days, maybe a sea breeze kicking up in the afternoon like it does every July. Nothing that should keep boats off the water. If it stays like this, the neap tides this weekend should actually make life easier on anybody fishing bait and jigs instead of trolling, because you won't be fighting three knots of current at the Gut.
Porgies are the most honest fish out there right now, and I mean that as a compliment. They've moved onto the reefs and rock piles off Orient and around the mouth of the Gut in good numbers, and they don't play games — you find them, you catch them. Standard hi-lo rigs with size 4 or 6 beak hooks, squid strips or sandworm, dropped right on the structure in 20 to 35 feet. Nothing fancy. The bigger scup, the ones pushing a pound and a half, are coming from the rockier stretches rather than the sand — think the boulder fields off Horton Point and the rip line running out from Rocky Point. If you're marking bait balls with porgies stacked underneath on the sounder, that's your spot, drop straight down and hold bottom.
Striped bass have been the harder read. There are fish around — we're not skunked by any means — but they're not schooled up tight the way you want in early July. Best action has come early, gray light before the sun's fully up, working bucktails and soft plastics along the Mattituck Inlet jetty and the drop-off just outside it. A half-ounce to one-ounce white bucktail with a 4-inch white or chartreuse Bass Assassin trailer, worked slow along bottom on the last of the outgoing, has taken some schoolies to 28 inches and the occasional better fish pushing 15 pounds. Bunker spoons trolled through Plum Gut on the last two hours of the ebb have connected too, though you've got to be patient — a lot of guys are marking bait on the sounder without marking fish under it, which tells you the bass aren't locked onto every school, just working certain pods. I heard about one absolute brute of a striper, better than 50 pounds, that came off a boat working the western Sound a couple weeks back — first fish that angler ever caught, if you can believe it, and she picked a hell of a fish to start with. Good sign there are still some real cows moving through this system, even if they're not stacked up predictably yet.
Bluefish have been the wildcard that saves a slow morning. Choppers in the 3 to 6 pound class have been busting bait on top off Rocky Point and out toward Orient, usually mid-morning once the sun's been up a while and warms the surface a touch. Topwater poppers or a simple diamond jig with a tube trailer, worked fast, will draw the strikes when they're up and showing. When they're down, switch to a metal jig like a Kastmaster or Hopkins and work it through the mid-column — they're still there, just not slashing on top.
Fluke fishing has been inconsistent, which is about what I expect from Sound-side drifting this time of year — the bay side gets the better numbers, that's Bill's water, not mine, but we do pick some up drifting the sandy stretches between Mattituck and Horton Point. Squid strips over white Gulp on a light bucktail, drifted slow on the last of the incoming, has taken keepers to 22 inches, but you're working for them, not filling a cooler.
Weakfish remain a bonus fish at best out here — a few showing up mixed in with the porgies on bottom rigs off Orient, nothing you'd plan a trip around, and I'd encourage anyone who connects to let the bigger ones go. That stock's still trying to find its feet.
Looking ahead, if the wind behaves and we get into these neap tides through the weekend, I'd put my time into the porgy grounds off Orient early, then work the bass bite at first light along the Mattituck jetty before the sun gets too high. Slack current at Plum Gut on the smaller tides should let bait linger longer instead of getting blown through, which historically settles the bass down to feed rather than just holding position. That's the pattern I'd bank on — not a guaranteed slam, but the kind of week where a little patience and the right tide window put fish in the boat.