5/11/09

The fishing season in Montauk has officialy started. (All that codfish stuff was the offseason or maybe pre-season).

On Saturday a couple of charterboats had half day trips, and both caught stripers and bluefish. The bass were nothing to
write home about, a mixture of shorts and eight to ten pounders. But you have to start somewhere. I’m willing to bet that
by next weekend there will be a fair amount of twelve to fifteen pound fish being caught. That is if any boats are booked.
The effects of the economy are being felt in the bookings.

But, the economy doesn’t seem to be helping the traffic too much. This past week I had to go up-island in the morning.
The wideening of the road from the end of Sunrise to McDonalds helped a lot. But now the traffic is backed up from the
Watermill Wiggle almost to the railroad tracks.

The MARLIN PRINCESS made it’s first fluke trip on Saturday. The conditions were pretty yucky, but still a handfull of
guys braved it out and caught some fluke, a mixture of shorts and keepers.
The fluke season officially starts on this Friday, but Captain Eddie got one of those scientific fluke set asides, which
means he can fish during thr closed season, with a four fish per person, twenty inch size limit. A couple of boats scored
these permits back in December because they knew that the regs were going to be more stringent this year than last with
the hope that they would be able to salvage a little bit extra out of their season. When the DEC came up with the new
regs with a split season, it looked like a home run for the few boats that are participating in this scientific exercise. But
apparently there was a lot of complaints received about the unfair advantage these boats would have over their
competitors, so now they are not going to be able to fish during the mid season closure, just before and after the opening
and closing dates.

If you would like to get these reports sent to you directly, drop me a line at captaingene@montauksportfishing.com and
I’ll put you on the list.

Capt Gene Kelly - Montauk Sportfishing