8/10/09
That was a pretty nice weekend for September.
Right now it seems like you can go mako fishing instead of just plain shark fishing. There are that many around. Of
course many are on the small size, but there are enough keeper size too. The Star Island Mako-Thresher Mania was held
over the weekend, with 57 boats competing. There were 26 makos weighed in along with 4 threshers, plus most of the
boats that didn’t weigh in anything had encounters with smaller makos. The results are as follows;

Overall Winner & 1st Place Mako - 331 lbs - Capt Jane
2nd Place Mako - 198 lbs - Mako Wish
3rd Place Mako - 196 lbs - Main Squeeze
1st Place Thresher - 274 lbs - Tuna Tangler
2nd Place Thresher - 242 lbs - Sweetie
3rd Place Thresher - 196 lbs - Tuna Tangler

Further offshore the yellowfins are fairly consistent although on the small size around the 400 line. Further out on the
edge there are better size fish but fewer, along with occasional marlin, mahi and wahoo. There was a real hot bigeye
bite at the Hudson early in the week with a couple of boats bringing back a half dozen fish. But it only lasted a couple
of days.

It’s hard for me to get reports on the tuna action because almost none of the charter boats are getting any tuna trip
bookings. I know of only one boat that has gone for the long run so far this season. There are probably a couple of
others that I’m unaware of, but it’s another indication of how poor the charter business is these days. I stopped by Star
Island this morning on the way for my bagel and there was only one charter boat out.

Inshore the live scup & spots were working well, maybe too well, all week. On Saturday it looked like there were 50 or
so boats drifting Great Eastern, but the catches dropped off a bit. But it is still worth the effort.

If you are into fluke, you’d better fish fast. The season is going to end next Monday. At this time of year there is usually
a real good bite of decent sized fish down around Gurneys, but so far it hasn’t developed. It looks like it will probably
be over before it gets started.

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