Sports • Published Apr 22, 2024 02 am
The swords are rattling for further changes in Atlantic herring regulations, since the stock is viewed by many as severely overfished. Atlantic herring has been in a rebu...
Sports • Published Apr 15, 2024 02 am
Coincidentally, Catch and Keep day fell on the old traditional Opening Day of trout season. Stocking has been top-rate, as multiple stockings have already taken place in ...
Sports • Published Apr 08, 2024 03 am
Have you noticed the number of anglers who have headed out or are returning from fishing adventures in what used to be far away locations? Flights are becoming more direc...
Sports • Published Apr 01, 2024 02 am
By Gabby Hurlbut
For a relatively small body of water, Long Island Sound sure can give up a record tog when it feels like it. We have seen togs suffer through being designated as overfish...
Sports • Published Mar 25, 2024 12 am
Summer flounder, often referred to as chameleons of the sea because they can change coloration to blend with their bottom habitat, have been the cause of many meetings an...
Sports • Published Mar 18, 2024 02 am
60-degree May weather in March, and April showers, appear to have come a month early. Then raise the bar from higher daily lows to recently experiencing more of the mid-5...
Sports • Published Mar 11, 2024 12 am
Optimistically, the 2024 fishing season will pick up from last year, as several of the key species finished off strong. However, people can’t forget having to first survi...
Sports • Published Mar 04, 2024 12 am
A Marine Recreational Regulations Informational webinar meeting, primarily concerning summer flounder and scup, was held on Feb. 28. Much of what was reviewed had been di...
Sports • Published Feb 25, 2024 08 pm
Law enforcement has dogs that are used to sniff out contraband, drugs, explosives, people, and the like. But fish? You better believe it! Word is out all along the banks ...
Sports • Published Feb 19, 2024 02 am
Looking out over the wetlands in winter is much different than rubbing elbows with them during the summer months. Void of most color and quite drab looking in the quiet s...
Sports • Published Feb 15, 2024 12 am
Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is one of the schooling fish species that can be fished recreationally during the cold months of December through February. During that...
Sports • Published Feb 05, 2024 12 am
NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center needs your help! Most fishers who fish Long Island Sound and surrounding waters have heard and/or seen the predation that sharks (...
Sports • Published Jan 29, 2024 12 am
A hot topic brought up at almost every fishery management meeting relates to fishing regulations, stock assessments, and surveys. In particular, marine recreational ones ...
Sports • Published Jan 21, 2024 11 pm
NOAA Fisheries Final Rule for 2024 and Projected Specifications for the Summer Flounder and Scup Fisheries for 2025 has been released. In both cases, it calls for coast-w...
Sports • Published Jan 15, 2024 10 am
Currently, there are two stocks of Black Sea Bass (Centropristis striata) that are managed along the Atlantic coast - New England/Mid-Atlantic, and South Atlantic stocks....
Sports • Published Jan 08, 2024 10 am
Bluefish catches have gained traction in the past few years, up from the paltry numbers and sizes of recreational catches, and prior to National Oceanic and Atmospheric A...
Sports • Published Dec 29, 2023 10 am
Memorable, unusual and rare catches come to mind when scoping out the twelve months of 2023. Taking into account that the year was the wettest on record, and following th...
Sports • Published Dec 18, 2023 12 pm
According to Luke (5:7, 5-11) it is said that commercial fishing businesses were conducted on the Sea of Galilee by fishermen organized into guilds. They provided food fo...
Sports • Published Dec 13, 2023 03 pm
Continuing after enjoying hillsides clothed in unending bouquets of fall colors, we embark into the Christmas season, where leaves are replaced with bright lights and oth...
Sports • Published Dec 04, 2023 11 am
So many notable fishing accomplishments threaded through the 2023 fishing season that if compiled into one logbook, it would be overflowing with photos, comments, and ast...
Sports • Published Nov 27, 2023 11 am
The spotlight continues to be on the status of striped bass, and how the stock assessments will shake out. Ongoing and upcoming public hearings might suggest further adju...
Sports • Published Nov 17, 2023 11 am
There is a correlation between aging and being thankful. Younger kin have less to learn, experience less, and have fewer things in their impressionable minds that deserve...
Sports • Published Nov 15, 2023 10 am
As water temperatures of the bays of Long Island Sound drop, shellfish beds cool down and begin to produce some of the best bivalves of the year. Colder water enhances th...
Sports • Published Nov 06, 2023 02 pm
Fishers on vessels (especially aboard small ones), and those fishing from a coastline full of boulder fields that serve as creative casting platforms, can be subjected to...
Sports • Published Oct 30, 2023 02 pm
Have we gotten our fill of catching, releasing, and retaining striped bass (Marone saxatilis) yet? Apparently, we have not. The love affair for the hunt of linesiders is ...
Sports • Published Oct 23, 2023 04 pm
Of course, it can always get better. But when one is into a week of non-stop hookups, runs, and large fish in skinny water, it is hard to fathom such a thought. Fall is e...
Sports • Published Oct 16, 2023 12 pm
A beautiful fall day to the average person may not necessarily mean a good feeding day for fish, although it may be conceived as a great day on the water. Fall is the tim...
Sports • Published Oct 09, 2023 03 pm
Basically, being an eel fisherman, three-waying them when out on the reefs or casting them in the suds has been a bait of choice. Striped bass love them, the pickups go w...
Sports • Published Oct 02, 2023 03 pm
After a month-long break, fall blackfish (tautog) is just around the corner. Water temperatures are dropping, and with plenty of competition for food among a slew of seas...
Sports • Published Sep 25, 2023 05 pm
Repetitive as it sounds, striped bass have been the talk all over southern New England this season. Big or small, they bit on live forage, fresh frozen pieces, or great o...
Sports • Published Sep 18, 2023 02 pm
If you enjoy mixing it up with crowds gathering at fall festivals and county fairs, then you are in for a treat. Likewise, if you like filling up on those maple and pumpk...
Sports • Published Sep 11, 2023 12 pm
There are fewer fisheries biologists than there are fishers, so let us keep it simple. Fish are very similar to people in that if it is too hot, there will be no fish pop...
Sports • Published Sep 05, 2023 12 pm
Since we have gotten a lot of response to sharks in the Sound, including questions and comments, there have been some very interesting and up close and personal ones — no...
Sports • Published Aug 28, 2023 12 pm
True, it has been sharks biting striped bass in half that has captured the imagination of fishers in recent weeks. However, the bluefish bite has been intensifying, and c...
Sports • Published Aug 21, 2023 12 pm
By Gabby Hurlbut
Two of Long Island Sound’s, shall we say, warm water resident sharks are generally docile, avoid people and are not dangerous. However, startle them or tempt them with a ...
Sports • Published Aug 17, 2023 07 am
What goes “bump in the night” and can startle anyone unfamiliar with the surroundings? A cat, dog, person, or old wooden creaky captain’s chair can cause someone’s heart ...
Sports • Published Aug 07, 2023 12 pm
Here we are, waiting for the Dog Days of summer to kick in and ready to adjust our fishing accordingly. Yet some of those hot periods already appeared in July, which begs...
Sports • Published Jul 31, 2023 12 am
It has been four years since the last great white shark (Cabot) was pinged in Long Island Sound off the coast of Greenwich and seven years since the first one (Montauk) w...
Sports • Published Jul 24, 2023 01 am
Until recently, pufferfish commonly caught in Long Island Sound waters were of the northern variety, which were generally considered non-poisonous. However, a warning cam...
Sports • Published Jul 17, 2023 12 pm
What an odd season fishers are trying to outguess! One minute, many key tidal rivers are loaded with bait, and the next, we have late-season high water levels and fast fl...
Sports • Published Jul 10, 2023 01 pm
With a name like that, one would think it would be the last place to point a bow. It shows up as a dot along eastern Long Island Sound’s shore and is nondescript on most ...
Sports • Published Jul 02, 2023 10 am
Too big to keep but big enough to fill a life-long dream seems to be an appropriate expression of the day. If you are an avid striped bass fisher and have pursued a simil...
Sports • Published Jun 26, 2023 01 pm
It is a delicate balance protecting the young of year class of fish so that our young of year generation reaps the results of that effort. Most will agree that these past...
Sports • Published Jun 20, 2023 08 am
First, the water temperatures in the estuaries broke into the 60s, then periods of short-lived heavy downpours followed. As a blue crab, that combination mostly forced th...
Sports • Published Jun 13, 2023 08 am
Extending National Fishing and Boating Week, which ran from June 3 to 11, benefits fish, fishers, and boaters who spend a good portion of the summer on and in and near th...
Sports • Published Jun 05, 2023 04 pm
Getting tired of catching striped bass? That is what a fisherman recently lamented who has been fishing the tidal rivers and estuaries. Mostly casting topwater and sub-su...
Sports • Published May 30, 2023 12 pm
As striped bass remain in the headlines, both from the numbers of fish in our tidal rivers and estuaries as well as those migrating into Long Island Sound from those wate...
Sports • Published May 22, 2023 03 pm
May slipped by, and suddenly, Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is at our doorstep. The day that America honors the men and women who died while serving i...
Sports • Published May 15, 2023 01 pm
Is it finesse of the fisher or difference in bait and lure choices that ultimately determine catch results? If we are referring to striped bass, for example, there is lit...
Sports • Published May 09, 2023 08 am
Not that additional conservative management measures were in order or that the realization that marone saxatilis’ dropping biomass was justification for this immediate ad...
